PlayStation ‘Play Fearlessly’ Spot Taps Gamer Emotion Instead Of Specific Products

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PlayStation continued its emotion-based video game marketing strategy during the NBA Finals Sunday, debuting a new spot called “Play Fearlessly.”

“Play Fearlessly” is part of Sony PlayStation’s ongoing “Greatness Awaits” campaign that, fittingly, debuted during the NBA Finals in 2013. Five years later, the campaign has become iconic of the video game console but this latest spot is different in one respect—it doesn’t show any gameplay or features.

“This year, we identified a massive opportunity to tell a unique story about the PlayStation brand,” Mary Yee, vice president of marketing for PlayStation told AListDaily. “One that focuses on something we can all relate to—the exhilaration and pure joy we all feel when we get to play.”

PlayStation has illustrated this idea many times throughout the “Greatness Awaits” campaigns, from jumping out of a window into a Star Wars X-wing to describing dynamic 4K with opera.

Rather than focus on a particular game, “Play Fearlessly” opens with a woman staring down the road at a wall of fog, talking about how the world is full of monsters like loneliness and doubt.

“In our world,” the woman says, “they bring darkness—we bring light. We play free.”

As the music comes to a crescendo and more people join the woman as she charges the wall of fog, they begin to fly into the air and exclaim with joy. The symbolism of “Play Fearlessly” is that gamers are freed when they face challenges, whatever they might be.

“For some of us, play is nostalgic—it reminds us of younger times or childhood memories,” said Yee. “For others, it is ever-present and something we prioritize in our lives. In either case, we think play is fundamental to who we are.”

PlayStation has promoted heavily during basketball sporting events, including the basketball halftime show between the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs. The activation, dubbed “War on the Floor,” featured a 3D image of God of War gameplay projected onto the hardwood.

“To us, sports fandom is analogous to with gaming fandom,” says Yee. “Basketball and sports, in general, invoke the extraordinary and bring a spotlight to athletes achieving great things in tremendous ways. In our world, our gamers are the athletes.”

Tom Cruise Posts ‘Top Gun 2’ Teaser, Drives Engagement For Paramount

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Top Gun 2 has begun filming, Tom Cruise teased on Thursday, sharing a photo on social media that has already garnered over $105,000 in earned media value for the film.

Actor Tom Cruise shared a photo on Twitter and Instagram of him dressed as his famous Top Gun character Maverick, walking toward a jet with the words “Feel the Need.” Aside from the photo, Cruise wrote only #Day1, meaning that it was the first day of principle filming for Top Gun 2 (titled Top Gun: Maverick).

Tom Cruise joined Instagram in January and is levering his millions of followers across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to promote the films in which he stars and/or produces. Since he performs his own stunts, Cruise shares behind-the-scenes footage of how some of the film sequences came together. His stunt work for The Mummy was even adapted into a VR experience.

To measure user engagement with Cruise’s Top Gun 2 teaser post, we calculated the earned media value from Instagram and Twitter.

“Earned media” is the value of engagements a brand receives across channels as a result of their marketing efforts. To help quantify what the value of those engagements is worth, Ayzenberg Group established the Ayzenberg Earned Media Value Index (AEMVI) and assigned a quantifiable dollar amount for marketing gains a brand receives from a campaign or individual engagement that includes social media networks and similar digital properties.

(Editor’s note: AListDaily is the publishing arm of Ayzenberg Group. To read the updated AEMVI report reflecting the rapid changes in social, click here.)

Based on the latest AEMVI rates for Twitter interactions, Tom Cruise—on behalf of Paramount Pictures—generated $105,817.05 in organic social media engagement in one day with just one tweet and one Instagram post. This figure was based on values assigned to likes, comments and retweets.

Tapping into the massive follower base of their actors, building hype for a film directly from the star’s social media profile has become a tactic used by many studios, leading to a shift in how actors negotiate their contracts. It was recently revealed, for example, that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is charging $1 million for access to his fans on social media, including 107 million in Instagram.

Johnson frequently posts about his upcoming projects, although it’s unclear as to whether he is paid to do so—the aforementioned $1 million social media deal was negotiated specifically for the upcoming film Red Notice. Actor Chris Pratt was reportedly paid $10 million for reprising his role in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and likely collected additional fees for sharing behind-the-scenes featurettes called “Chris Pratt’s Jurassic Journals.”

AList Picks: The Podcasts Worth Your Time

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There are 240 different podcasts under the “Most Popular” tab for iTunes’ Marketing and Management topic alone. We’ve separated the marketing podcast wheat from the chaff for those looking to maximize their off-screen time.

Confessions of a Marketer

Hosted by Mark Reed-Edwards, Confessions of a Marketer is a series of candid, one-on-one conversations with prominent marketing professionals and professors on subjects spanning a CMO’s wheelhouse, from broad strategy topics such as data privacy and the next generation of talent, to granular subjects like product marketing and funding acquisition.

AdExchanger Talks

For the digital and data marketers, AdEchanger Talks is the source for news on martech developments and digital best practices. With episodes on the lengthier side of the marketing podcast stack, discussions are more in-depth, but include full-text transcripts for listeners in a rush.

Ad Lib

Purporting to cut through the PR-speak so prevalent in the media and marketing fields, AdAge‘s Ad Lib podcast features off-the-cuff conversations with high-profile marketers about their careers, experience and opinions.

“The goal here is to do away with spin and jargon, and get to know some of the more influential and innovative people in this space—and understand the humans behind the titles,” the show’s description promises.

HBR IdeaCast

The long-running official podcast of the Harvard Business Review, HBR IdeaCast features bite-sized conversations with executive thought leaders and academics in all aspects of business and management, from networking to AI innovations to work-life balance. The podcast releases weekly, and has a massive searchable backlog from the last 11 years for any topic that might cross a marketer’s mind, including a six-part series centering entirely on the triumphs, troubles and myths faced by women at work.

Announcing ‘Fallout 76,’ Bethesda Earns $210,000 EMV With One Tweet

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Bethesda has long proven itself as a savvy player in the capricious attention game, drip-feeding its fans hints for teases for announcements to maximize conversation while minimizing information. On Tuesday, with a gif, a bobblehead and a Twitch stream, the game publisher created a textbook case of hype generation for its latest game, Fallout 76.

In 24 hours, Bethesda generated over $200,000 in organic social media engagement, garnering 60,000 Retweets and close to 150,000 likes on a single Tweet. That’s more than triple the amount of engagement Bethesda’s official Twitter account generates in an entire month.


“Earned media” is the value of engagements a brand receives across channels as a result of their marketing efforts. To help quantify what the value of those engagements is worth, Ayzenberg Group established the Ayzenberg Earned Media Value Index (AEMVI) and assigned a quantifiable dollar amount for marketing gains a brand receives from a campaign or individual engagement that includes social media networks and similar digital properties.

(Editor’s note: AListDaily is the publishing arm of Ayzenberg Group. To read the updated AEMVI report reflecting the rapid changes in social, click here.)

The stream, which focuses on a Vault-Tec bobblehead and a TV displaying a flickering “Please Stand By” message, is occasionally interrupted by other teases, such as a man wandering through the frame wearing the game series iconic “Pip-Boy” wrist accessory and a ‘Punch and Judy’-esque Vault Boy puppet.

Even as comments roll in faster than one could possibly read them, begging for more information and speculating on the content of Bethesda’s presumable announcement, the company remains tight-lipped. So far, the only information about the announcement came from Obsidian, one of Bethesda’s developers, to say that the stream has nothing to do with them. The mystery remains.

Bethesda pulled a similar stunt just earlier this month to announce Rage 2, commenting on a leak from Walmart Canada, following up with a few cryptic messages leading up to a full announcement. These hype-building lead-up tweets were fundamental to the marketing of the game—Bethesda’s original tweet responding to the Walmart leak generated significantly more engagement than the announcement itself.

Despite Bethesda’s plans to host a press conference at E3 this year, the company seems to be skipping the lens of journalistic coverage to instead go directly to their fans.

‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Misses Expectations Despite Marketing Efforts

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Despite a large marketing push, Solo: A Star Wars Story debuted well behind industry expectations this weekend, forcing Disney executives to rethink future strategy. The stand-alone film about Star Wars’ most infamous smuggler was expected to reach upwards of $150 million domestically but earned just $103 million as of Monday.

Can fans get too much Star Wars too quickly? The film was released just five months after The Last Jedi, which has Disney looking for a connection.

“We have a lot of work to do in trying to understand this,” Disney distribution chief Dave Hollis told The Hollywood Reporter. “We are all over it and will spend a lot of time digging into why things happened the way they did in various markets. We have a year and a half before Episode IX comes out.”

For analysts, Solo‘s box office setback calls to question the relationship between marketing and box office success.

“Disney has more marketing muscle than any other studio given the iconic nature of their brand,” Karie Bible, box office analyst and film historian at Exhibitor Relations, told AListDaily. “Overall, Solo had the lowest debut on record for a Disney-released Star Wars film and could have an impact on future spin-offs in the franchise.”

Marketing for Solo: A Star Wars Story included partnerships that ranged from Denny’s menu items to packaging for Solo plastic cups.

Disney/Lucasfilm shared exclusive behind-the-scenes commentary through Google Assistant. An action called “My Special Guest” allows users to ask questions of Alden Ehrenreich (Han Solo), Emilia Clarke (Kira) or director Ron Howard.

After a substantial marketing tie-in for Rogue One, Nissan once again teamed up with Lucasfilm to give away custom vehicles inspired by Solo: A Star Wars Story. Nissan debuted a custom Rogue made to look like the Millennium Falcon at the red carpet premiere and hosted a photo booth to encourage social sharing.

Marketing a beloved character is a blessing and a curse, placing Disney in the precarious position of honoring Star Wars characters while meeting modern sensibilities.

“The franchise, in general, is at a crossroads,” said Bible. “[Disney and Lucasfilm] are trying to make films that appeal to the younger generation while still pleasing fans who grew up with the originals.”

Solo hit an interstellar speed bump when fans learned that directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord were fired and again when some fans disagreed with Lando Calrissian being pansexual.

“Perhaps more than any franchise in film history, Star Wars fans are personally and deeply invested in these films,” said Bible. “They grew up with them since childhood. If they are displeased in any way, they will be very vocal about it to everyone on social media. Word of mouth spreads like wildfire and people respond accordingly.”

Despite these obstacles, Solo: A Star Wars Story still managed to nab the number one box office spot for Memorial Day weekend. Box office revenue increased 26 percent over last year, Bible said, thanks to bigger franchises like Deadpool 2 and Avengers: Infinity War.

Netflix Passes Comcast in Market Value, Inches Closer To Disney

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Originally published at VideoInk.

Netflix is now worth more than Comcast. The streamer blew past the cable provider in market value yesterday, signaling another milestone for the streaming industry as it continues to successfully compete with Pay-TV.  Currently, the company’s market cap is around $149 billion while Comcast is sitting at $147 billion. Netflix’s next target is Disney, which leads the three companies with a market cap of $153 billion.

Netflix’s stock has gone up more than 70 percent since January. Confidence in the streamer is generated partly by its ability to create and acquire successful original content like “Stranger Things,” “Black Mirror,” “House of Cards,” “Orange is the New Black” and animated comedy “BoJack Horseman.”  This growing library of original content has been key to attracting and retaining subscribers. In order to keep up with the demand, Netflix plans to spend $8 billion on original projects this year, producing a mix of approximately 700 movies and “TV” series.

Netflix’s ultimate goal is for its original content to make up at least 50 percent of its library. In September 2016, Netflix’s CFO, David Wells, said the company was “one-third to halfway” there. Netflix executives feel there is greater opportunity (and safety) in the company owning its content, rather than licensing. One of the concerns is that as more companies launch OTT services they will no longer want their content (or at least the good stuff) streaming on rival platforms. This has already been the case with Disney. The multimedia conglomerate plans to launch a Disney-branded service in 2019, when it will also remove its content from Netflix.

With Disney having rights to blockbuster hits like Marvel’s Avengers, “Star Wars,” “Coco,” and its long list of classic and current cartoons, Netflix isn’t going to be looking as attractive for some, especially those who turn to the service for its licensed content. A recent study conducted by 7Park Data suggested that it’s actually licensed titles like TV show reruns that form the core of the company’s streaming business. The study found that 80 percent of Netflix US viewing is from licensed content with 20 percent from original shows.

Gamers Spent $9B In April; ‘Fortnite’ And ‘God of War’ Top The Charts

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Consumers spent $9.09 billion globally on digital video games in April, an increase of 23 percent year-over-year (YoY) according to the latest figures by SuperData Research.

Console and mobile digital game revenue were the primary drivers of growth in April, according to SuperData, offsetting relatively flat growth on other platforms.

Epic Stays In The Fight

Fortnite not only continues to thrive in the Battle Royale genre, but it broke another record last month. The popular title earned $296 million in April across Console, PC and Mobile, compared to $223 million in March.

Once again, Fortnite: Battle Royale was the top-earning game in the console category for digital game revenue.

The rise of Fortnite is good news for Epic Games, but Rock Star is feeling the pinch as players shift their attention away from Grand Theft Auto V. After an amazing streak of 12 consecutive months with YoY growth, GTAV Online declined nine percent YoY in April. The loss of player attention may not all be attributed to Fortnite, however. SuperData noted a “dearth of significant content updates” from Rockstar may also be attributing to the game’s slow decline.

Either way, Grand Theft Auto V slipped one spot on the digital console charts down to number six.

Sony Slays Records

God of War sold an estimated 2.1 million digital units at launch in April, becoming the largest console exclusive digital launch to date. To put things into perspective, God of War sold more than double that of the second-largest Sony exclusive launch, Uncharted 4.

Sony’s monster-slaying, father and son epic took home the number two spot for digital console revenue in April, bumping Far Cry 5 down to number five.

Tencent Maintains Its Honour

Honour of Kings is the top-grossing mobile title in the world, having earned another $185 million in April. The MOBA generated its highest month to date in April, up from $171 million in March and $149 million a year ago.

Tencent’s mobile mogul continues to defend its top spot on the digital revenue charts month after month.

‘God Of War’ Unseats ‘Far Cry 5,’ Smashing Video Game Sales Records In April

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The NPD Group has released its monthly report for on new physical video game sales, as well as a subset of full-game digital downloads from participating publishers in NPD’s digital panel. Although not intended to cover total market/total consumer spend, the figures give us an idea of industry-wide trends.

April saw an 18 percent increase in spending across the hardware, software and accessories verticals, reaching $823 million. Year-to-date spending is also up across all categories, rising 15 percent year over year to $4.2 billion.

God Of War Brutalizes The Market

Sony’s critically acclaimed first-party title God of War swept the categories for the month, achieving the title of April’s best-selling game despite the fact that it’s only available for the PlayStation 4.

“Sony was April’s top-selling publisher, driven by the success of God of War,” said NPD analyst Mat Piscatella. “The PS4 exclusive from Santa Monica Studios achieved the highest ever launch month dollar sales for a title launched exclusively on a PlayStation platform.”

Indeed, sales for God of War helped the PlayStation 4 set the all-time record for April game sales on any platform, a record last set by the Xbox 360 back in 2008.

Far Cry 5 Continues Its Reign

Ubisoft’s flagship Far Cry franchise, despite losing the number-one spot for game sales, is still on top for year-to-date figures, remaining the top selling game of the year. Additionally, Ubisoft is the top-selling publisher of the year, helped by the continued success of its Tom Clancy titles.

Total software sales reached $359 million for the month of April, up 13 percent year-over-year. Year-to-date software sales hit $1.9 billion, a growth of 9 percent.

Consoles Continue Steady Growth

Hardware spending showed few surprises this month, increasing 15 percent to $225 million for the month and jumping 14 percent to $1.2 billion for the year.

“Spending gains for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Plug N Play devices such as the SNES Classic have driven growth,” added Piscatella. “Sony’s PlayStation 4 was the best-selling console hardware platform in April, and remains the best-selling console hardware platform year to date.”

The PlayStation 4 system set another decade-old record, beating out the Nintendo Wii from 2008 as the highest April dollar sales for a console.

Continuing a trend from last month, sales of headsets and headphones are significantly higher than they were a year ago, totaling an 89 percent growth over April 2017.

Meet Tes: Westworld’s Mysterious Chatbot, Personality Test And Loyalty Program

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Westworld‘s second season promises viewers further exploration into the questions raised by the first, and its marketing activations have kept to the same promise. Sending out an email invitation to “recent visitors” to the park, HBO is launching another, even more mysterious Facebook Messenger chatbot, named Tes.

“You’ve been selected to join Westworld Elite Status—a one-of-a-kind program available exclusively to our most loyal park guests,” Tes says as she opens the conversation.

But, this being Westworld, there’s more to it than there seems at the surface. Tes is HBO’s second chatbot to promote its sci-fi western series—its first bot, Aeden, was nominated for a Shorty Award last year.

But where the previous chatbot acted as a concierge for the park, guiding users to visit the Westworld website, Tes has longer-reaching goals. After posing a series of philosophical questions and ethical dilemmas (and “glitching,” as the show’s robots are wont to do), the bot assigns its conversation partner to one of four different “zones” based on their answers.

“Ruby Guests know what they want and have the strength to take it. They make choices in the blink of an eye, understanding that nothing is worse than indecision. With Ruby access, the whole world is yours to conquer,” Tes states for users who responded to questions decisively. “I think you and I are going to get along great, Will. Your power and lack of scruple could be of great service.”

Once a user is assigned to a “zone,” that’s the end of the interaction; no further attempts at conversion required. Tes drops a quote in Latin from Virgil’s Aeneid that Reddit users are already hard at work unpacking.

In addition to tapping into the “sorting hat” process that helped make Pottermore and legions of Buzzfeed quizzes so popular, the chatbot promises to keep users in the loop with content and activities designed specifically for them, turning the exercise into a bizarre form of meta-fictional loyalty program.

“Now that you’re an Elite Status member, you’ll hear from me every week with exclusive offers, activities, and updates available only to Ruby guests,” Tes states. “You have no idea what’s in store.”

IAB Report: 70 Million US Households Will Own Smart Speakers By 2022

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As voice recognition and speech software becomes more impressive, marketers are starting to wonder if they should enter the field themselves, and if so, how. Fortunately, the Interactive Advertising Bureau has just released a substantive guide on the subject, giving the curious and unsure a look at what voice means for them now, and what it will mean in the future.

“This evolution of technology is unique because it’s not only introducing new devices and software, but it is also bringing on the mass adoption of a new interface for interacting with devices,” the IAB voice report, titled “Implications of Voice for Marketing Purposes,” reads. “For many consumers, this is the first time they are using their own voice to command a device and the first time they are hearing devices respond in a very human sounding way.”

Many of these first-time consumers are getting hooked on phonemes. According to the IAB voice report, 18 percent of Americans currently use voice assistants, either through smart speakers or their smartphones, and of those users, 65 percent are unwilling to go without them again.

Not only does the IAB predict the number of voice platform users to grow rapidly in the near future, but so too will the amount of time (and money) spent using the technology. The IAB voice report predicts that 70 million US households will own smart speakers by 2022, and there will be over 870 billion voice assistant-enabled devices in the US by the same year. Additionally, the IAB predicts the share of consumer spending transacted through voice assistants to quintuple in the next three years.

“In the future, consumers will get more comfortable with these devices and their actions become more meaningful and have real revenue implications, like making purchases, providing reviews and re-ordering items seamlessly,” the report reads.

But this time and money spent with voice platforms won’t come from nowhere. Thirty-nine percent of smart speaker users are spending less time with traditional radio, 34 percent are looking at their smartphones less frequently, and 30 percent are watching television less often. According to the IAB’s forecasts, the money spent through voice platforms will come primarily at the expense of physical retailers, whose share of customer spending will drop from 59 percent to 45 percent as a result of voice platforms’ meteoric growth.

“One of the reasons people shop in stores is because you can interact, ask question and get advice. Consumers will shift their behavior to shop at home if they can have a similar or better interactive experience.” Mark Paul Taylor, chief experience officer of Capgemini.

Even as the IAB stresses the importance for brands to develop their voice strategies quickly, it warns that the limited number of platforms necessitates a different approach than convention may suggest.

“Brands are at risk of being marginalized in a voice driven world, so brand marketing may matter even more. Asking Alexa to order you batteries will result in Amazon simply fulfilling your request with their brand of batteries, but the brands who continue to invest in differentiation and brand identity will inspire consumers to ask for them directly,” said Bryan Moffett, chief operating officer of National Public Media.

Overall, marketers should use caution when designing their own approaches to voice-based marketing. Because the technology is so nascent, number of users of an Alexa skill or Google Home feature may not fully reflect how well an activation is fuctioning.

“Usage is an important KPI for us—where do people finish in the journey? Do they learn a certain number of whisky facts? It’s important to establish these KPIs at the beginning, combined with a very clear consumer purpose, to make sure you’re building the right engagement points for the right outcome,” said Jefferson Kohler, brand manager for Diageo.

No matter how voice platforms will change the field, the IAB voice report holds one marketing truism to persist, that in order to be effective, an activation needs to be integrated.

“Similar to the early days with the app ecosystem, ‘gimmicky’ apps that appear to serve little purpose will clutter the environment,” stated Donnie Williams, chief digital officer for Horizon Media.