OK, I like the PSP. I don't like the price and I don't like the overall fragile feel and I'm not all into the games for it yet... which is why I don't have one. But I like it, in pure theoretical terms. However, I don't get the commercial.
First of all, I bet that no one is more surprised than Sony that the two PSP launch ads ("POV" and "Blender") are still running. According to this article, the ads were only scheduled to go until mid-April, covering just under a month in which Sony no doubt fully expected the PSP to sell out across the country. The big sell out didn't happen; every retailer I visit has piles of them still available, and I still have $250 in my wallet. So the ads are still running.
The POV ad is great. It presents a PSP's life story across multiple owners, from birth in Japan to its inevitable death getting scratched to all hell by some choad using it as an MP3 player in his backpack. Be careful with that zipper, you idiot! It's a well done spot - especially with the Kooky Funster playing from the grocery store cart - it's the second ad that mystifies me.
The "hip young consumer" rounds the street corner, clearly engrossed in his PSP. Seems fine so far. The music rocks.
Then he quickly morphs into a stylin' singer... which I'm told is to represent one of the many multimedia functions of the PSP. This one being "music." "Movies" is up next.
Sort of an odd choice for "movies" though: a B&W cowboy with the glow of a film projector behind him. Before I read the Sony press release about this ad, I figured they were just showing off the potential for a Wild West PSP game here. Which sounded good to me... but no, it's just showing you that the PSP plays movies. Although I would place good money on the supposition that you will never, ever be able to buy a silent film Western on UMD.
The cowboy morphs into a basketball player. Fine. Sports games. Got it. But now things are about to get weird, for the b-ball star jumps for the hoop and lands on the ground...
...as a rock star with dinosaur legs. Whuh? Now, this may not be immediately apparant, but the cowboy's projector lights return for the dinosaur legs. Through the benefit of discussion, we can divine that this character is showing off two PSP features at once: music and movies. But is that concept hitting home when the ad is playing live and all of a sudden you're getting Risky Business-era Tom Cruise with a dinosaur's ass?
Because now it gets even screwier. I'm just guessing here, but I see a blonde gangster (tommy gun in his left hand) with the legs of a Chorus Line dancer. This might be the most disturbing of all the amalgams, just because the entire body bounces suggestively as he shoots the tommy gun. Plus - and again, you really don't notice this when you watch the spot in real time - his right arm is now B&W. The movie cowboy again? Whose arm is that? LIQUID!
That bizarre figure then turns into a complete Sweet Tooth from Twisted Metal. But when the clown turns to face the camera, he develops Terminator robot legs and is holding a baseball bat.
And then he changes again, now to a hockey player with the bottom half of a woman wearing latex and high heels. He takes the big slapshot and transforms back into the hip young consumer...
...who breakdances his way onto the bus stop bench. That guy staring at the hip young consumer is actually me, trying to figure out just what the hell happened.
I know what the press release says, that this Blender spot is intended to visually display all the myriad possibilities the PSP brings to portable gaming. But is all the confusing body switching really necessary? I would bet that most people don't make the conceptual leap to identify "music, movies and games" among all the CG figures. It just reads to them as "Boy, I guess you can get a lot of different games for that." Unless you're going to tell the uneducated masses that you can store music on the thing (if you buy a decent-sized memory card) and you can watch movies on the thing (if you buy your movies on Sony's special UMD format), most will just assume it plays games. And therefore, all the characters in the commercial must relate to a game of some sort.
Actually, since most of the figures seem to be split into top and bottom halves (admit it: you didn't notice that B&W arm!), I first interpreted that as some kind of ill-conceived jab at the dual screens of the Nintendo DS.
It's hip, that's for sure. One big mess of hip.
I pretty much hate that ad.
