Hopefully it's short term. Don't know if Ford can fill Audi's shoes when it comes to home but they certainly could and more if they wanted to.
Hello All- First I want to apologize for not being as active as I would have liked to have been on YPSH over the past few months. Things have been CRAZY at work lately and I haven't had much time to check out the site. I apologize. Second, I apologize for not letting the community know that the Ford showroom was going to make an exit from Playstation Home. We were very happy with the showroom and loved hearing the community's reaction to our first program in Playstation Home (I even used some of the posts from you guys in a few presentations). I found out late last week that our program's flight was to end last week. When we built this project, our agreement with Sony was to have this space live for a limited time (basically, it was a media buy). Like they say, all good things must come to an end (for now). I will make one promise to the YPSH community, we will continue to evaluate programs in Playstation Home for upcoming campaigns. We saw some great metrics come out of this program and everyone at the company was really geeked about it. If (and I use that word with caution. My crystal ball is currently in the shop) we do another program in Playstation Home, we have talked about polling the community to see what they would look for in our next space. Once again, I apologize for the lack of communication. In the meantime, HAPPY GAMING and look for me on PSN (bmac8781) Regards, Brian Ford Digital Marketing Twitter: @brianmcclary PSN: bmac8781
Thank you for the followup and information Brian:yes: I would love to contribute a number of comments and ideas to future spaces, but first I would love to hear something from your side. Are the Companies who invest in a Home Space (in gaming) looking for an instant boost in sales? Or is the mentality more of "showing a presence" and shooting for "top of mind" and brand familiarity and recognition the goal? I certainly wouldn't want to discourage any potential clients, but I think many of them need a better understanding of who the community is they are catering to, and what their realistic expectations need to be? I think, speaking for myself here, there are a number of things I love in a space. Here is a public space concept close to my interests and heart. What is a good PS Home Space idea, and what is it going to need?:Some immediate free rewards. No point beating around the bushes I guess... the simple truth is, most home players love free, cool, stuff (big bonuses if it glows and enhances the comeliness of the Avatar). This is what initially pulls me into a space. The cooler the free reward, the more I am willing to do to try and get it. For example, I wont do much for yet another T-shirt (unless it's unbelievably cool) beyond show up. For a multi-piece outfit along the lines of a smexy Anime style, OMG I would ... IDK ... wear an over-the-head banner for your products into all the spaces of home or something! hmy:Now with the immediate gratification done, I need a reason to come back... the Company in turn probably wants my attention focused on something in particular. So using Ford as an example: I would love a game that is repeatable, that is not the exact same actions and results each time, and has a chance at even more/beter rewards. Loving to dance like I do, my first suggestions would be to integrate what ever products the Company is trying to promote into an epic dancing space/game. Maybe instead of showing us the cars some geek at the corporate office thinks we are "more likely to be able to afford", they instead put the coolest of the cool in the space. And as us players complete different dance feats to some awesome Electronica music (with maybe some Skrillex Dub mixed in here and there), we are advanced to progressively elevated dance floors, which also happen to have cooler and cooler vehicles on them and integrated into the dancing game. Our objective is simple, get the cool rewards associated with the highest level Dance Floor (VIP status/level), where the coolest cars are at, and where we continue to earn points by dancing or playing the dancing game. Now the players focus on earning points, and the space provides for higher and higher points earned rewards (weeks-months). With regard for music, PLEASE no "Animal - swinging chain" garbage music... in fact, avoid music with lyrics all together!! Most good clubs I go to have great DJs who almost completely removed the lyrics parts of pop, and then add their own extra content mix, and the result is awesome and wicked fun to dance to! (Example Music DJs for what I like to Dance to: DJ Awards - deadmou5, Armin Van Buuren, Paul Oakenfold, Above and Beyond, etc...)OK, now that you have my complete attention with a good selection of commonly themed music, and awesome rewards for me to get, as well as continue to earn points toward some super coveted things (if you're not sure, just ask me and I can tell ya if it's super cool or not LOL), now you can have me become an expert on the companies products by integrating that into the ongoing points gain multiplier. So what does that mean? Well, maybe I earn points just for being there dancing. Maybe I earn even more points by dancing on higher and higher tiered floors up to say 2-4X points at the top VIP floor I worked to get up to (and now I'm Supa-kool LOL). But for the 10X points gain, maybe it needs to be a combination of skill on my part (actively), as well as knowledge of the Companies products or something? Look at the draw to Konami's DDR space. Leader boards, spirit of competition, music that's ..well, it's not too bad I guess. But they have a loyalty of followers that is pretty much unprecedented in PS Home. But instead of a single winner competition, you earn what you earn by performance and the multiplier achieved. You can technically still have a winner, but it's the person who did the best, but the others earned good points too, just not as many.Well anyway, that's "an" idea, and I am sure I could come up with 50 more. I am a little bit bummed that the time slots for Companies can be so short. Please don't use my super neat Dance Space idea on something that wont be around very long for me/us to enjoy :sweatdrop:. In fact, go ahead and market it to Sony, then it can stick around for a long while if successful :clapping:
Or just do what Audi does so well in EU. Slick space, sweet rewards, challenging games, regular updates. We had all hoped that Ford would be to NA what Audi is for EU. Oh well, better luck next time. To be honest, I don't believe that I ever returned to the Ford space after the first week. Why would I?
