On the evening of 14th November 2013, London’s iconic skyline was transformed as its original piece of guerrilla advertising, the OXO Tower - flouting the rule that bans advertising on the Thames with its unique windows since 1929 – became a beacon for Sony’s highly-anticipated PS4 launch.

At this moment in PlayStation’s trajectory as a gaming brand, it was necessary to create a PR campaign that would reboot the console’s cool factor and drive ‘must-own' status. Microsoft’s XBOX One was launching one week ahead of the PS4 and Sony needed to emerge as the victor in the next-generation console war.

The Oxo Tower stunt, which was strategically planned to happen the week before Microsoft’s 22nd November launch and saw the towers historic letters replaced with the iconic PlayStation symbols in the two week period leading up to launch, paved the way for a hugely impactful campaign.

It was notable not just for the volume of buzz it generated – 36.5 million Twitter impressions in the first 24 hours, 178 million opportunities to see and an immediate pre-order uplift of 16,000 consoles - but for the latent brand love for PlayStation it unlocked. It wasn’t brash, it didn't rely on scale – it was playful, subversive and reminded people why they loved PlayStation in the first place.

The stunt was followed by a midnight launch on the PS4’s November 28th in store date, effectively giving PlayStation dominance of the shared launch window and contributing to Sony’s most successful console launch ever.

On the morning of 14th November, an exclusive photo story in Metro hinted that London’s OXO Tower was about to undergo a very special facelift. Teaser images were released simultaneously from the PlayStation Twitterfeed and buzz on social channels exploded.

By the time the lights switched on to reveal the iconic PlayStation symbols, excitement was at our agency pitch and, despite the stunt essentially being a piece of advertising, every national newspaper covered it; London Tonight had a new backdrop for its 335,000 daily viewers and Buzzfeed gave us a round of applause.

The switch-on coincided with an exclusive preview event for celebrities, lifestyle media and influencers at the OXO brasserie, with the objective of getting the PS4 into the hands of the right people as early as possible. Even Jonathan Ross, recently announced as an XBOX consultant, was there and took to Twitter to proclaim how ground-breaking the console was.

The OXO Tower stunt kick-started our sandwich campaign with the level of mass talkability we’d been striving for. Within 24 hours of the light-up the stunt had generated 36.5 million Twitter impressions – approximately 1.5 million people seeing PS4 launch related messaging per hour – and had generated more chatter than the seven figure launch taking place simultaneously in Manhattan.

In addition to the incredible word of mouth achieved, the activity had a direct impact on sales with retailers Amazon and Dixons experiencing a 12% uplift versus the previous week. With the console on sale since July and retailers having stopped guaranteeing launch day delivery, sales had been slowing and this represented a huge boost.

Our sandwich strategy was effective in securing PS4 references in 85% of all XBOX One launch coverage and by Christmas the PS4 had outsold the Xbox one by 166,000 units, despite launching a week later.