Sony PS3 Launch Case Study
Channel: David A. Hays
Date: 2015-02-20

In support of the launch of the PS3 console, the ‘Play B3yond’ campaign was my first full-fledged, 360 degree integrated platform. Beginning with the iconic commercials showing the black box floating in a white room, these esoteric spots suggested a secret, pure and unfettered space where the audience was invited to witness the strange and mysterious effect the PlayStation 3 has on anything placed near it--a metaphor for the brilliant experiences you'll have once you plug in your PS3 and let it take hold of your reality. The tease spots drove traffic online to PlayB3yond.com, an equally mysterious ‘white room’ website that featured a coded alphabet interface scrawled on a blank white wall. The key to unlocking this code was found in an out-of-home series of wild-postings that were photographed, assembled in photo-editing apps and shared by fans to form a large mural, which featured the symbols hidden in the artwork. It was my personal pleasure and great honor to design this entire mural myself, which ultimately merged key art and signature visual elements from six different launch titles into one action-packed tableau full of messages transcribed in a unique language. We created this secret language for hardcore gamers, who we knew would take the effort to discover and decode it. The new alphabet was derived from the very DNA of the Playstation by dissecting the four controller symbols and generating new glyphs from the disparate but recognizable pieces. As the posters showed up online, the code snippets embedded within them were discussed, scrutinized and pored over as a community of fans came together to solve the mystery of the white room website. After the site went viral, it became the digital hub for hundreds of thousands of inquisitive fans who got premiere access to exclusive, never-before seen content and videos showcasing the dramatic and radical new capabilities of the next generation console.