PlayStation × AYMI

Sony Interactive Entertainment's first-party titles compete in the most attention-saturated launch windows in entertainment. A tentpole franchise drop needs to convert hype into pre-orders inside a six-week pre-launch flight, then sustain engagement across the first 90 days post-release.

AYMI was brought in to rebuild the paid + lifecycle motion across the full launch arc — not to ship another burst of launch creative, but to re-architect how spend, audiences, and lifecycle worked together from hype-build through retention.

Five movements: Discovery, Strategy, Creative, Launch, Optimize. Each one feeds the next; the loop closes on Optimize and starts again on Discovery.

1. Step 01Discovery

   Audience modeling across the console install base, lapsed-franchise players, and cross-platform competitive cohorts surfaced three distinct demand pools — each with separate creative needs, channel mix, and conversion timing. The lapsed cohort was the largest untapped lift; legacy campaigns had been over-spending against already-converted core fans.

2. Step 02Strategy

   A three-phase media plan keyed to the launch arc: hype-build (broad-reach franchise video for cross-platform competitive players), pre-order conversion (performance push on Meta, TikTok, and console-network channels cut per cohort), and post-launch retention (lifecycle linking pre-order purchasers into the first-90-day loop). KPIs locked to pre-order CVR, launch-week DAUs, and 30-day retention.

3. Step 03Creative

   Cohort-specific creative systems built from a single visual identity. Lapsed players saw nostalgia-anchored 'what you missed' cut-downs; competitive players saw spec-and-stat ads benchmarked against rival platforms; core fans got first-look exclusives and pre-order-gated content. Every variant laddered back to a unified franchise position.

4. Step 04Launch

   End-to-end activation across paid social, search, programmatic video, console-network media, and creator partnerships. Attribution was unified through a custom incrementality model layered on top of platform measurement, allowing mid-flight spend redirection toward the highest-incremental channels.

5. Step 05Optimize

   Continuous learn-and-redirect: weekly creative refresh against fatigue signals, channel reweighting against incrementality reads, and lifecycle tiering against in-game behavior. The retargeting layer was rebuilt around lookalikes seeded by 30-day actives — not pre-order purchasers — so it found players who would stick around.

Launch-window pre-orders ran ahead of forecast, with the lapsed-player cohort doing much of the work. The franchise community grew across the engagement arc, and retargeting became a more efficient layer once it was seeded from engaged players rather than buyers.

The model is now templated for future franchise drops — a repeatable launch-arc system rather than a one-off campaign.