Sony picks club promoters, artists and fashion industry to push PS3

Sony has chosen 12 individuals and organisations to help fuel the PlayStation 3's marketing push in the UK, Media Guardian reports.

According to the paper the 12, who range from club promoters, artists, fashion industry insiders, Dazed & Confused magazine and the BBC's 1Xtra, have been given a free hand by Sony to "create original content inspired by key characteristics of the PS3."

Each of Sony's chosen 12 will then distributed content digitally across a wide range of outlets including social networks such as MySpace, websites, blogs, e-mail and their own contacts.

According to SCE UK marketing man Alan Duncan, 'traditional' avenues of avertising and PR aren't enough to communicate the PS3's appeal: "The idea is to use physical space, blogs and other forms of digital networking to inform, entertain and encourage interaction and debate about all the different things the PS3 can do."

Of course Sony recently used the same strategy to market the PSP - the infamous 'all I want for Christmas is a PSP' campaign comes to mind - which didn't exactly manage to send Sony's handheld flying off the shelves.

Rana Reeves, director of Shine Communications which developed the digital strategy with Sony, tells the Guardian "Traditionally, brand communication with consumers has been channelled via an ad agency. The explosion of social networks and blogging, however, has created a seismic shift. Brands wanting to enter this world have to be prepared to trust consumers to talk about them whether the comment is good or bad."

via cvg