Play Day: How LADbible Group marked the biggest moment of the decade in gaming with a nationwide day off

Client: PlayStation

PlayStation and Mediacom partnered with LADbible Group, one of the world’s biggest publishers and the number one authoritative voice in social, to mark the stand-out moment of the decade in gaming: the launch of the PS5.

The brief was to create an iconic social media moment that achieved PlayStation’s objectives of winning at both gaming and culture, whilst embodying PlayStation’s mission; ‘Play Has No Limits’. Working with our Data, Intelligence and Planning team, we learnt that 1/3 of Brits would consider taking a day off to play their new console [OnePulse Poll, Aug 2020]. LADbible Group took this brief and interpreted it in a way that only we know how, via a full social media takeover. We launched a nationwide Play Day! Giving our 300+ members of staff a day off to play PS5 and pausing usual editorial across our five key brands. We inundated social news-feeds with unmissable, standout posts advising the audience that ‘All of LADbible have the day off, sorry. We figured they’d just be playing PS5 anyway.’ We also shared ‘live streams’ of our employees playing the new PS5, launched an exclusive competition for our followers to win their own PS5 and shared editorial pieces on the games available, fan reactions and tips and tricks throughout the day. This social media blackout gripped the audience’s attention; the 24-hour campaign reached 24m+ people, received 167k+ engagements and over 30k entries to the giveaway as well as becoming the most engaged branded content campaign in LADbible Group’s history.