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ad report card: Advertising deconstructed.
A "Television for Men and Women." Huh?
Sony's convoluted Bravia ad.
By Seth Stevenson
Posted Monday, Jan. 8, 2007, at 12:13 PM ET
The Spot: A man and woman meet cute on a sidewalk as they find themselves both admiring a Sony Bravia TV in a store window. The scene ends on an ambiguous note (is he about to ask her on a date?) but not before a page of text flashes briefly and illegibly across the screen. Upon closer inspection (inspection that's possible only if you have a DVR that can pause the ad), you see that the text reads, "Would you rather be a rebellious, nonconformist maverick coach … or a shoe lover who gets asked to be a shoe model …?" It then directs you to a Web site. The ad's tagline: "The world's first television for men and women." (To view the Web site, click here, and then click "Choose commercials here" to view the alternate endings, or "Hidden TV message" to see the briefly flashed text.)

A previous ad for the Sony Bravia is one of the most talked-about commercials of the past few years. Featuring 250,000 brightly colored super-balls cascading through the streets of San Francisco, this spot won gold at the 2006 Clio Awards. It's now been watched millions of times on YouTube.

It's clear why the unfortunately titled "Balls" is a hit with the average viewer: It's among the more visually stunning pieces of video you'll ever see. (My favorite moment: A small dog takes shelter in a doorway, totally baffled by the onslaught of bouncing balls.) But why are advertising people—who've seen all sorts of beautiful visuals over the years—equally enamored of the ad? Here's what I wrote from the Clios last year: "The ad folks, predictably, loved this spot, because its execution involved lots of expense and complication. 'Can you imagine how many windows they broke?' murmured a guy in the next row at the awards ceremony. He could not conceal his envious smile. 'What an outrageous shoot!' agreed the guy next to him. 'They're still picking up those balls!' "


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Ad-industry folks get bored of making conventionally effective 30-second spots and are always seeking out new, ambitious projects for themselves. This sort of thinking will sometimes lead to an attention-grabbing triumph like "Balls." But more frequently, it results in a convoluted dud like this new Bravia campaign, which is a classic example of ad-exec overthinking.

Everyone in the persuasion business is scared of DVRs, because they allow viewers to skip ads. Thus this Bravia spot attempts a bit of jujitsu, using the DVR as a tool to lure viewers deeper into the campaign. But it's not a new trick, and without proper enticement (KFC at least rewarded us with a free chicken sandwich), I doubt that at this point many people bother pausing these gimmicky DVR-specific ads to scrutinize their hidden messages. It's just not worth the time.

Anyway, the enticement here is particularly weak. The idea is that television viewers will be sent scampering to the Web site—which would allow the ad guys to crow at meetings about "multi-platform storytelling." But the initial ad with the couple on the sidewalk lacks a gripping cliffhanger, so we're not left thirsting for more. And that subliminally flashed text about being a football coach or a shoe model isn't nearly intriguing enough to get us firing up our laptops and surfing over to Sony.com.