In the battle of the motion controllers, one of Sony’s top marketers said that pre-orders were encouraging, despite a smaller spend on advertising than its rival.
Peter Dille, SCEA’s senior VP of marketing, doesn’t think that Sony will ever match the deep pockets of Microsoft’s marketing department. Speaking specifically about Move versus Kinect, Dille simply said “I don’t think we’ll ever outspend Microsoft,” although whether he means that it can’t outspend its rival, or has simply chosen not to, isn’t clear.
Despite the smaller spend, Dille said that pre-orders for Move were “continually ramping up,” and that feedback from retailers suggested that they would like to have more stock than they actually did. He added that he hoped it would be a hot product, although he was very aware that people were watching what they spent more than ever at the moment. Dille’s comments seem to disagree with those made by Sony’s UK marketing department however, which just yesterday seemed to be downplaying first day sales, and saying that the Move wasn’t necessarily a pre-order product.
Marketing a product isn’t just about the amount of money thrown at it, it’s also about how that money is spent. The Move campaign apparently won’t fully start until the product is released on September 17th, but if Sony continues to do things like the “Yay Buttons” and “Move vs. Stuff” websites – things that are relatively cheap, but are entertaining enough to tell your friends about – that smaller spend may not be a problem at all.
Source: Seattle Times via CVG
