As advertisers struggle to reach increasingly distracted and jaded US consumers, they have sought nontraditional vehicles for their ads, from elevators to cellphone screens.
Now Sony has given advertisers another venue to try: its PlayStation Portable, or PSP, a sleek, handheld game system that also plays movies and music.
Heavy.com, a large Web host of short films and animation, has started making many of its clips available as free content specially formatted for the game system. The company hopes advertisers will support the free content by paying for quick commercials before or after the downloads, or by providing content in the form of branded entertainment. Whether audiences of sufficient mass will watch videos and ads on the devices, however, is far from clear.
PHOTO: NY TIMES
Trials underway
Unilever, the first advertiser to take Heavy up on its offer, will test the potential with a series of branded shorts about two guys roaming the country and filming their efforts to meet women, all to promote Axe body spray.
People can watch them at www.evanandgareth.com, on Heavy.com -- or on PSPs after a download from Heavy.
The typical Axe customer, a man between 18 and 24 years old, has such fractured media habits that 30-second commercials and magazine ads are not enough, said David Rubin, development manager for Axe at Unilver.
"He is still watching television, but even when he's doing that, he's online or might have his PSP on in front of him," Rubin said. "The more pieces you can reach, the better."
Web advertising also allows more interactivity and measurement than traditional ads, he said.
"If you were to just do television or print, which do play a very important role, you miss the opportunities that other media allow," he said.
Other companies are exploring the marketing potential of the PSP and other new handhelds. ABC News has converted reports on topics like cybersecurity and hybrid cars for the PSP. Sony Pictures has made previews for movies like Lords of Dogtown, about surfing and skateboarding during the 1970s, available as well.
Even with Sony claiming sales of 500,000 PlayStation Portables during its first two days on sale in North America, the potential for advertisers may depend heavily on how much people like watching the clips. Even the appeal of full-length Hollywood movies has not been proven. Brian Crecente, editor of the Kotaku gaming site, has shown some ambivalence about movies in the portable format.
Crecente wrote on Kotaku one Monday in April about buying the movie House of Flying Daggers in the PSP format over the weekend.
Full-length movies?
"I haven't watched it yet," he wrote, "because I would feel weird sitting in my house, which has DVD players, VCRs and countless TVs, watching a movie on my PSP. I was going to go out in the hammock and watch, but it's too bright."
Crecente said Monday that he still had not watched the movie but was hoping to find an excuse.
"If I'm in a car on a road trip I can pull it out and watch," he said, "or if I'm stuck at an airport."
Short clips from Heavy.com, which can be watched online anyway, do not necessarily make more sense, Crecente said.
"Why take the extra step of downloading it and taking it somewhere?" he said. "You're going to download it, put it on the PSP and step outside?"
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary