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Sony replaces 'Kevin Butler' ad agency with 'Axe Astronaut' firm
Sony has announced that it has selected New York-based ad agency Bartle, Bogle, Hegarty as its new lead creative agency, after what sounds like a complicated (and crowded) selection process. For the past six years, Sony's lead agency has been Deutsch L.A., the team behind none other than Kevin Butler and the famous "Michael" ad. But after chatting with Deutsch and other cool-sounding firms like 180LA and Anomaly, Sony selected Bartle, Bogle, Hegarty New York to deliver its future message.BBH has an impressive portfolio of work, including the Axe Astronaut campaign you may have seen during the Super Bowl last week. Why did Sony switch horses after so long? Oh, we don't know – maybe they have a big new announcement in the works they want advertised just the right way.
Activision Publishing CEO says perception of the company is different from reality
As co-CEO at ad company Deutsch LA, Eric Hirshberg was partially responsible for turning the PlayStation 3 from something that freaked us out into a platform for the VP of Awesome. Now, HIrshberg is able to comment on a similar turnaround at Activision. As the CEO of the publishing group, he says that "some of Activision's reputational challenges are not based in the reality of the company that I've experienced here so far. ... What I can tell you is since I've been here there's not a day or an hour that goes by without a conversation or focus on creative excellence in delivering great gaming experiences to our fans. That's what this place is focused on and about." Yes, Activision may have put a "for sale" sign on UK racing studio Bizarre, laid off staff at Neversoft and Radical Entertainment and elsewhere, and weakened studio after studio, but Hirshberg says all the cuts are indicative of just how tough this business can be. And even in a tough business, says Hirshberg, "we do everything we can to make the relationships with our developers work, and to find a commercially viable use of their talents, and it's only when we've exhausted every other opportunity that [shutdowns and layoffs] happen." The video game industry, he says, is "a high stakes game when everyone's trying to get into that upper echelon of performance and there's no middle class," which means, presumably, that Activision has to be judicious when choosing who gets to keep working. That may be true, but Hirshberg's going to need more than that if he wants to turn Bobby Kotick into PlayStation's KB.
New Activision Publishing CEO is Kevin Butler's dad
Did you know that in addition to being the new CEO of Activision Publishing, Eric Hirshberg is also responsible for giving birth to fake Sony pitchman Kevin Butler? It's true, the towheaded adman sprung fully formed from Hirshberg's loins while he was still with marketing firm Deutsch LA. However, he says in a Kotaku interview that he's not interested in plopping out a clone for Activision, saying "Kevin Butler was the right solution for Sony." Hirshberg doesn't take the job until September, so he says he hasn't settled on how he'll be attacking Activision's image problems. Hey Eric, if you're hard up for ideas, you can feel free to co-opt our new character: "Blogger Who Carries On a Birthing Metaphor Too Long Until Both He and the Readers Are Grossed Out." We think he's headed for big things.
