What made the launch of PlayStation 5 an award-winner

It’s been just over a year since the unforgettable activation at Oxford Circus for the launch of PlayStation 5. This partnership between Sony and TfL has sent creative shockwaves across the media industry and has raised the bar for creative excellence. ✨

Since then, it has gone on to win 28 awards in total across various industry celebrations. More recently, it took home five awards at The Drum Awards for Out of Home across multiple categories including ‘Most Talked About.’ It’s certainly a memorable campaign not only as a product launch, but for its cultural resonance and visually compelling execution.

Gran Turismo 7 Sisters station platform PlayStation

Victoria line station names and PlayStation graphic

How we achieved the success

We believe there were three key reasons: it was simple, stunning, and surprising.

Simple

It’s often thought that memorable campaigns are the ones with a mind-blowing idea at the centre but, as the PlayStation 5 campaign proved, this is not always the case. The idea to merge two iconic symbols, TfL’s roundel and PlayStations shapes, was as simple as that. Both globally recognised and culturally significant, it made undeniable sense that bringing them together would be powerful without overcomplicating.

Stunning

As the variety of awards have shown, it was a stunning, standout activation that caught everyone’s eye in person and in the media. It looked incredible, made for phenomenal photos which were shared worldwide and for record levels of social media sharing. A clever idea badly executed will never be award-winning. So it was important that the activation was delivered with the level of quality on par with the idea.

Surprising

It was completely unexpected for these two mega brands to amalgamate. From the phenomenal level of creativity to the top-quality execution, it surprised audiences and the industry. The effect this had achieved everything Sony and TfL had set out to do. Including driving conversations, making headlines, and putting all focus on the launch of PlayStation 5.

The fact that this campaign is still a benchmark for success in Outdoor creativity one year on is testament to these three elements.

Our Commercial Partnerships team are always open to innovative ideas from brands to collaborate and deliver, as well as helping to build from scratch.