To help boost the Blu-ray disc format by Christmas, the main Blu-ray supporters including 20th Century Fox, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Sony and Warner Bros. have worked with the marketing agency SicolaMartin to produce an advertisement in High Definition designed to target high definition viewers over the shopping period in preparation for Christmas. This 30 second commercial advertisement features movie clips of popular titles with theatre-quality sound to help show off the features that Blu-ray has to offer.
In an aim to target viewers who already have a High Definition TVs, these advertisements will be shown exclusively on HD cable channels including Discovery HD, INHD and HDNet. This advertisement started airing on November 17th. On the other hand, advertisements for Blu-ray will also be run in lifestyle magazines and those targeted at AV enthusiasts, such as Home Theatre, Home Entertainment and Wired.
Probably the biggest boost to Blu-ray will be Friday's launch of the PS3 in the US with 400,000 ready to go on sale; each player doubling up as a Blu-ray disc player. Unfortunately, even if the PS3 turns out to be a major success and causes a higher penetration of Blu-ray players, it is unclear yet just what percentage of PS3 owners will watch movies on their players. For example, besides the iPod series, the vast majority of MP3 players on the market are WMA PlaysForSure compatible, yet only a small percentage of these owners actually purchase music from PlaysForSure compatible online stores to play on their MP3 player.
Further info can be found in this Broadcast Room press release.
