The meaning of life? Simple: It's all about winning.
At least according to PlayStation.
Last week, the Sony-owned console brand used a new ad to take a crack at the philosophical question that’s stumped humanity's greatest minds for millennia. Created by Del Campo Saatchi & Saatchi of Buenos Aires, Argentina, the spot opens on an Arctic archaeological site, where one of the diggers uncovers an amazing find: A Paleolithic sage who, having spent some eons living suspended in a block of ice, has had nothing but time to ponder existence.
The caveman assumes the role of the ad’s narrator, illustrating in surprisingly good English PlayStation’s interpretation of Darwinian theory. "Ours is a competitive race. Listen,” he commands. “One baby starts to cry, and the other cries louder. One man gives a girl a star, and another, something brighter”—a big, shiny diamond ring, to be precise, earning the female’s affection, and presumably leaving the jilted astronomer to sob into his telescope.
The ad’s images draw on some of life’s most significant stuff—kids, love, work. “It’s in our DNA, we all want to win,” the caveman argues. But the ad lays the camp on thick: Lofty overtones are cut with humor (to mixed effect). “In evolutionary terms, I have defeated all these monkeys,” he exclaims, eyeing a nearby pack of simian popsicles. The takeaway? “We are all players,” reads the ad’s tagline. In other words, you're a gamer whether you know it or not.
Of course, if not being an ape is the bar for success, we don’t need the PlayStation to feel like winners.
CREDITS
Client: PlayStation
Title: "We Are All Players"
Executive Creative Directors: Maxi Itzkoff / Mariano Serkin
Creative Directors: Joaquín Espagnol / Ariel Serkin
Art Director: Matías Lafalla / Ammiel Fazzari
Copywriter: Ramiro Gamallo / Matias Eusebi
Agency Producer: Adrian Aspani / Ezequiel Ortiz
Account Team: Carolina Paparo / Ana Bogni / Reinier Suarez
Planner: Jessica Wildman
Chief Executive Officer: Pablo del Campo
President, Latin America: Cynthia McFarlane
Production Company: Garlic
Director: Marcelo Burgos
Executive Producers: Alvaro Gorospe / Irene Nuñez Palma
Postproduction Company: Serena
Sound Designer: SonomediaMusic: Swing Musica
Advertiser's Supervisors: Mark Stanley / Rossanna Schach
