The Most Creative Gaming Ads Of The Last 25 Years.
Used to be, Gaming Brands got very conceptual.
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Are you a Gamer? I, am not. (I don’t think Solitaire counts.) Some of the best, most surreal ads of the last 25 years have been via PlayStation (and too a lesser degree, Nintendo). Many of them were created by the Paris office of TBWA.
TRIGGER WARNING: some disturbing images.
Chile
From 2008. Above, soldiers building a monument to you, gamer. Below, Orcs doing the same. Ad agency: BBDO, Chile.
UK
This 1999 spot also deified gamers. The casting is brilliant. But it’s the “double lives” script that won this TBWA London spot all the awards. “I have commanded armies, conquered worlds…” Watch, listen. This is what great copywriting looks like, sounds like. Directed by Frank Budgen.
France
Kama, sans her gamer lover, Sutra. From 2004. Ad agency: TBWA, Paris.
France
Lara Christ. D&AD Yellow Pencil winner from 2001. Catholics were not amused. Ad agency: TBWA, Paris.
France
PlayStation produced several ads using their iconic controller symbols as the creative linchpin. Love the blow-up “doll”. Ad agency: TBWA, France.
Spain
Free Yourself…Wireless Controller. From 2007.
Nintendo Gamy Boy
Three “Feet-As-Hands” ads plus one macabre execution for the handheld Game Boy. Top Left: From 2004. Ad agency: Brindfors MullenLowe, Stockholm. Top Right: Eww. Agency unknown. Bottom Left: Funny. From 2002. Ad agency: JBR McCann, Oslo. Bottom Right: Zoom in—Piranhas? are eating a kid’s feet to the bone, he don’t care. My favorite of the group. Agency unknown.
UK
Lastly, this roundup must end with the Mother (literally and figuratively) of all gaming ads from 2002 that launched (did it ever) Xbox in Europe. In less than 50 seconds watch a baby explode out the womb fly at the speed of life, age into an old man, and crash into his grave, dead.
The Kingdom’s Independent Television Commission (ITC) received complaints fast and furious after this amazing spot first aired. It was finally banned three months later. Ad agency: Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London.
HONORABLE MENTION PLAYSTATION COMMERCIALS: Mental Wealth (creepy alien girl, 1999, TBWA London); Mountain (insane, 2003, TBWA London); and two directed by David Lynch, Bambi (kinda predictable) and Welcome To The Third Space (very Lynchian).