Brand: Sony Bravia LCD TV
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here
Target: Beauty-Seeking Television Watchers
Reviewer: David
Rating: **

Description:
We see aerial shots of San Francisco and then balls rolling down a steep hill, down a street. There are more and more balls of different colors until it is a flood of balls and a riot of colors. Eventually, the work ‘Colour’ appears, followed by ‘Like No Other,’ then a shot of the LCD television with ‘Bravia LCD Television’ inside it and finally ‘like.no.other’ and ‘SONY’. The spot is set to the song ‘Heartbeats’ by Jose Gonzales. This is a U.K. spot which debuted in cinema in November 2005 (in a 2:30 version) and moved to television.

What Works:
This is a very beautiful spot. In fact, this is probably one of the most beautiful and memorable commercials you will ever watch. The cinematography, music and slow-motion effects are all top-notch and the spot is visually entrancing. Time seems to slow down as you watch those balls tumbling down the hilly streets of San Francisco.

What Doesn’t:
Our ad coverage is generally US-centric but we chose this spot to make a point. While this spot is undeniably beautiful and incredibly memorable, what is not memorable is the brand it connects to. Yes, there is a connection between colored balls, color and color televisions, but it is pretty abstract. Seeing those balls roll down a hill for two minutes and twenty seconds before seeing the Bravia and then the Sony name in the last ten seconds doesn’t do much to make Sony or the Bravia memorable. This is the type of spot that people talk about all day but then when you ask them ‘what was the brand’ they have no idea.

Here is the problem where art and advertising meet. Great art can be bad advertising. Fallon has made great art for Sony but bad advertising. It is good for the agency and bad for the brand.

Branding Bottom Line:
We want to hire the director to remake a Fellini film. What was that brand, again?

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 2nd, 2006 at 5:27 pm and is filed under Sony. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.