Brand Week, who I’ve never heard of until now, maybe I’ve been under a rock, has come out and stated that advertisers are no longer as interested in bringing their content to PlayStation Home. Without much surprise, BW also points out that Microsoft’s XBL may be a better solution for advertisers because they’re not as slow-footed as Sony is when it comes to this type of thing.
“The product has disappointed both users and advertisers,” says Brand Week. “In fact, Red Bull remains one of the few non-endemic advertisers to carve out space in the world.”
Brand Week is not alone in this feeling as several other executives felt the need to weigh in on the situation and how they feel Sony isn’t delivering fast enough.
“Microsoft has MSN,” said Jon Epstein, CEO of in-game ad firm DoubleFusion. “They are much more of a media company than Sony has traditionally been.”
“From moment one, it kind of felt clunky,” said John Rafferty, creative director at Publicis’ Denuo. “And once you got through that, there wasn’t much there.”
Of course, it wouldn’t be fair to just allow the stockpile of comments aimed directly at Sony’s PlayStation Home to go without defense, so the website contacts Jack Buser (good guy), in order to see how Sony felt about the issue.
“PlayStation Home offers partners a chance to cut through the noise and actively engage directly with a large, targeted, and highly desirable consumer base,” argued PlayStation Home director Jack Buser. “Over 30 partners have recognized PlayStation Home as an interactive platform to convey an immersive brand experience.“
When it comes down to advertisements (outside of keeping us up, right?), I’m kind of glad to see that Sony isn’t plastering them all over the consoles products. Unlike Microsoft’s “in-your-face” advertising, Sony does seem to have taken a different approach, which is one that I can approve of a bit more. Not everyone likes to just have ads popping up everywhere all of the time.
i couldent hawe said it better myself
agreed
I still think that Home has a lot to do to keep bringing in advertisers within the platform. I’m a frequent user of Home and I’ve seen in spiral down so much over the past year, despite whatever positive spin the managers try to put on it. It’s just not working right now as well as it used to.
I’ve also seen a lot of failed events due to Home’s inability to directly communicate with it’s users. So many confused and frustrated people is not good and I myself barely use the service now. I can’t imagine how bad this must look to those wanting to use Home as a way to advertise. Even A&E used it a few times and not to the best result. It certainly left a bad taste in my mouth with Home handling events such as these. I really do want Home to succeed but it has a long way to go for now.
Well, who can blame them. Home is in concept a great oportunity for ads AND gamers, but it just doesn’t deliver.
You’ve definitely been living under a rock. BRAND WEEK ROX MY SOX OFF.
I never really liked Home, I doubt I’ll like the 360’s Game Room. I wonder what less ads will mean for Home.
uhhh yeah…PSHome is a total fail man…Recent Fails vvv
1st Strike: PSHome
2nd Strike: The Tester
1 more strike and youre out, Sony….stop wasting money on stupid stuff
YES!!! this terrific now they can go shove that garbage down the throats of the xbox live losers im mean users
Home is a waste, really I’ve been on it a couple times, I’m not surprised that advertisers would switch to Microsoft.
Home is cool but it just feels too much like a beta (which it actually is). It needs to be a faster and almost seamless experience so I can gather with my friends, chat for a little bit and then launch a game.
Sure, right know I can do all those things but it takes forever to load. . . . . . so it’s better to just start from the game itself.
home takes forever to load, i mean going from one Area to another. Home is a great and concept has a lot of potential if done right. Atleast it doesnt force ads on ur face
I dont use Playstation Home, but they do not put ads right in your face. They are there and if you like them, you will notice them. So it seems to be just fine.
Although I do agree that it is a feature that COULD potentially be a great asset to Sony, the people in charge of developing stuff for Home seem to be picking their nose and shoving their fingers up their ass, because half the things promissed are not here.
Photo frames? Custom video uploads? TVs in the room?…
Home needed to be so much more in terms of drawing people in for advertising to work
@Thorzilla
Actually, picture frames were included in an update a few months ago but sadly, it was also around that time that Home basically became broken and hasn’t been fixed since. At this point, Home should focus less on features and more on making it a stable experience because no matter how much content they cram into it, it’s all made useless if the Home base experience is a slow and clunky one.
@VofEscaflowne:
Oh, I didn’t know that. Still, content is not added equally. US people get A, while EU people get B and none the same.
i would think more adrtisment would be good as they will make more money to expand so it can become better and itsnot like theres muc advertisment anyway. so i think sony should have more advetisment but in the form of the redbull air race so the advertisment is fun.
I hope they continue to have advertisement on Playstation Home because it helps Sony offer the Playstation Home service for free.
I’m one of those people who doesn’t use Home, but I don’t easily get lured into advertisements or pay for virtual home clothes so companies advertising there wouldn’t see much business from me either way. On the other hand, those people who use Home with lots of time and money to spend on weird Home items would probably easily get lured into ads for useless stuff so I’m sure it’s a great place to advertise.
@bleh NO no it is not a good place to advertise not even 10% of playstation 3 owners that go online even go on Home, there isn’t alot of people to advertise to, that is why the advertisers are jumping ship.
I personally think HOME is a failure and will not become as big as Sony has hoped so I fully understand why Ad agency’s are pretty much giving up.
@bleh
Playstation Home is a good place to advertise to those that use it. There are people that use Home a lot and getting the advertise to those people can make a difference in companies sales number.
@star, but if they have to pay x amount to get it in PlayStation HOME and only make y amount of money, then there is no reason to do and they should leave it.
@ Star , Do you go on Home to see advertisements? no I don’t think so, the Advertisers are not making any profit from advertising on Home.
But the ads don’t necesarily need to be so obvious. Think about the Red Bull Space, which has minigames and stuff.