Guess you have already seen the new spectacular spot from Sony made by Fallon with the 250.000 bouncing balls in the streets of San Francisco.
In my opinion it’s the perfect case for what a modern marketing campaign should contain for several reasons (sorry for the almost fan-like argumentation):
First and foremost it’s allegedly a great product (this review gives it 5 out of 5 stars and call’s it “a rich and powerful image”).
The client/agency/production company relation seems to have been profoundly collaborative build on trust and playfulness according to interviews with the director Nicolai Fuglsig and the Fallon creative Juan Cabral (I can’t find the link to the article)
There is clever pre-launch strategy with this “behind the scenes” web-site and a massive viral distribution of the content
It is sticky and highly infectious communication and works in both traditional and non-traditional media. First it hit the big blogs in the ad community, and more importantly is has created consumer buzz and transcended into popular culture as here with pictures on Flickr.
There is even a bit of the so-called open source creativity or co-creativity here (where the Sony has wisely been inviting everybody to take photos and film from the shoot in modern junction with the rules of “creative commons”)
And then the campaign messaging itself (obviously we have only seen the Online and TV stuff yet – I hope it is also going to include other intelligent media solutions – maybe a version of the film for video podcasting) it has a tonality of honesty and authenticity and (it is even done without tricks or computer graphics).
It’s build equally on strong insights on the product and into the consumers and their quest for imagination and almost infantile playfulness when it comes to technology.
It’s not building a formulaic brand concept but is rather embracing the magical complexity of colours. It has nuance and depth and leaves something behind for one’s own imaginary perception. It’s simply great communication that works as Velcro.
See the different versions of the film here.
This is not an ode to the classic DDB VW ad.
It’s just a thought on the rise of the portable video/content devises. Weather the winner in this game is going to be the new iPod, the PSP, The 3G mobile phones, PDA’s, Sony MP3’s, iRiver or whoever is not that important.
The thing is video content is going to be in your pocket from now on.
Video content is going to be sold relatively cheap (Disney already sells through iTunes and MTV has just bought iFilm). But I’m just wondering whether content should be the same in every medium. It seems that what is created for the TV/Internet sphere is just scaled down when is goes down to the small screens. Maybe future music videos, ads, sitcoms and even movies should be done in different versions – one that’s works in the “old” media and one for this new genre. The introduction of the iPod is a good example where they have cleverly used a concert close-up of Bono instead of some traditional video where you could hardly see anything. 
Back in the early nineties Stephen Malkmus was the guy behind Pavement on of the most notable bands in the Slacker Generation (or the Generation X if you want). Together with Beck and a couple of others (off course Douglas Copeland in the literary field) he had a new lo-fi aesthetic that a lot of young people could connect with.
Now he has gone solo and is playing much smaller venues, which is great if you happen to catch one of his shows. I did last week, and his songs from the so far three solo albums are great. He has lots of great little quirky pop songs. His accompanying band mates “The Jicks” is a great back-up for his imaginary guitar sound.
For the third year in row Diesel in Scandinavia is having their much acclaimed Diesel New Art (DNA) which is a platform for innovative art and design. Thousands of young and relatively unknown artists are trying to get in to the exhibitions in Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm and hopefully establishing them amongst art buyers and others. I saw it the other week and one of the pieces especially caught my attention. A pretty weird picture of a round table of people covered in dough. It was by an artist called Søren Dahlgaard with the title “Elliptic Touchdown 4” and was described as the challenge on dough- whatever that is. But that’s the thing about art and graphics you don’t always have to understand everything to be drawn into it.
It is hard to find a properly designed individual standard house (a least if you want it mastered by a top architect). At the agency we have a client that wanted to change this with his company M2. Together with a couple of the best architects in Denmark (PLOT, CEBRA, SHL, 3xN) he has made what you can call democratic architecture in the best of Scandinavian tradition. The whole project was launched last week and it’s quite exiting to se the massive reactions they have seen from both the press and more important potential buyers.
Guess you have already seen the new spectacular spot from Sony made by Fallon with the 250.000 bouncing balls in the streets of San Francisco.
