From the dulcet tones of Lance Henriksen's voice to the disturbing images of a weeping baby doll, Peter Dille's second tour of duty at Sony Computer Entertainment is already having an impact. Currently SCEA's senior vice president of marketing, he also worked there in product marketing from the launch of the original PlayStation in 1995 until 1999, when he left to run worldwide marketing for THQ. We caught up with Dille recently in New York for a two-part interview. In the first part, below, he gives us the lowdown on what he's trying to achieve with the PS3's oddly absorbing ad campaign. (Click here for Part II.)

Your predecessor, Andrew House, is now chief marketing officer for all of Sony. Since the launch of the PlayStation 3 is extremely important for the company, how involved is he?

Andy's well aware of everything we're doing. We're all friends, he keeps in touch with everybody. But he's got a very big job. He's not one to micromanage anything that's going on within our camp. We keep him informed. It's obviously a very important product for Sony Corporation overall. But to be honest, Andy's not involved with any of the details associated with the launch.

Given his promotion, did you feel as though you had big shoes to fill?

I thought it was a great springboard to a really big job. [Laughs.] No, I'm happy for Andy on a personal level. We've been friends for a long time. Yeah, they're big shoes to fill. And this might sound a little canned, but it's an honor to be involved in the top marketing job for PlayStation. It's why I moved the family and took the job.

Chiat Day does the ads for both Apple and PlayStation. Why have the Apple ads been far more memorable?

Because I wasn't there? [Laughs] Can I say that?

You can say whatever you want!

I think that's a question for Chiat Day to be honest. The PlayStation advertising brand is quite strong. They're different categories. I'm sure you're talking about iPod and not all of Apple, although I am a fan of the current work contrasting the PC and the Mac. I think we've got a great campaign for PS3, it's very different than what people are seeing in the category, it will get the PlayStation 3 brand off onto a very strong footing as we go forward into another 10-year life cycle for the PS3.

There are a lot of consumer electronics spots that either rip off the playfulness and emotional resonance of the Apple ads, or struggle to create a separate aesthetic with little success. The Bravia and Play Beyond ads are among the few I've seen that manage to carve out their own space. They're emotional and absorbing without feeling like the Apple ads, or even like traditional Sony ads. How did you and Chiat Day achieve this?

That's high praise, and I'm glad to hear that it's resonating with at least one consumer. It was very important for us to demystify the technology behind PlayStation 3. It's a very powerful machine, but it's not the type of product category where you can talk speeds and feeds and expect consumers to care. You have to translate what all that means into the benefit from a gaming perspective and an entertainment perspective. The Play Beyond Web site, we're very pleased with how those walkthroughs came out. They articulate the benefits of the technology in a way that is meaningful to gamers.

It's the tip of the iceberg because there's more coming to that site. In a 30 second ad, you can't accomplish the same thing you can in a two-minute video on the Web. Some of those videos will also be available in our interactive kiosks. We're using a metaphorical approach to the power of the PlayStation 3. A lot of the category tends to do me-too advertising once someone comes up with a look and feel. We've always felt that we at PlayStation should define the market and have others follow us. The PlayStation 3 campaign was a conscious attempt to do something that was going to look very different from other work in our category.

You spoke of demystifying the technology, which the ads do very well. Were there any particular emotional qualities you were trying to achieve on top of that?

Emotion is a big part of the category. You've seen the baby spot, which kicked off the TV effort. The whole thought behind that was, look at the wide variety of emotions the PlayStation 3 can elicit. The other theme we're setting up is that the power of the PlayStation 3 is so awesome that anything placed in close proximity is witness to this awesome power. So this baby doll is whipsawed through a gut-wrenching range of emotions, from laughing and crying to reverse crying. That's going to set up a series of spots where you'll see the power of the PlayStation 3 in this white room environment.

I thought the white room concept was a little weird at first. I didn't quite get it. It wasn't working for me. But when I saw the Play Beyond site, I said, "Aha, now I get it."

The whole purpose of that very first spot in the white room was, we wanted people to take a step back and say, "What the heck is that?" One of our core brand values is that we always want to be provocative. We wanted gamers to talk about it with their friends, and say "Did you see it? I don't know what the hell they're talking about." If you look at the blogs, it's the ultimate Rorschach test. Some people are saying, "Oh, the PlayStation 3 is the mother of all systems--that's what the baby represents." Other people are saying, "No, it's all about the emotions." Both of those answers are true, if that's what it means to you. But first and foremost, it's getting people talking about it and setting up an expectation of, "Where are they going next? I want to see the next spot."

And the white room?

It's a platform for a metaphor. It's a stark environment. It's a clean palette. And it's an opportunity to paint on that palette whatever we want, whatever is possible with the PlayStation 3.

Next: Dille on Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft bloggers and which celebrities are right for the PlayStation brand.