Sony Bravia ditches 'colour like no other' in new Kaka ad
by Kate Nettleton, Campaign 05-Dec-08, 11:25
LONDON - Fallon shot the latest ad in its series of Sony Bravia commercials last night, ditching its focus on colour in favour of motion by constructing a 10 tonne, record-breaking zoetrope.
Read Kate Nettleton's blog from the shootThe ad was shot in a small square in the village of Venaria near Turin, and was directed by Vernie Yeung.
Sunday, 21 June 2009
other bravia
Sony Bravia: Campaigns like no other
, 31 December 2006, 12:00pm
A massive creative success, Sony Bravia's 'Balls' campaign was also a lesson...
Sony Bravia: Domino City
Staff, , 23 March 2009, 7:05pm
LONDON - Paint, bunnies, balls and now dominos are used to promote...
Sony Bravia and Immediate Future seek online PR focus
, 01 November 2007, 00:00am
Online PR will be a prime focus for the next phases of...
Sony to break new Bravia TV ad online
Danielle Long, , 20 July 2006, 00:00am
Sony plans to break the eagerly-awaited second ad for its Bravia high-definition...
Major online push as Sony launches new Bravia spot
by Danielle Long, , 13 October 2006, 2:00pm
LONDON - Sony will launch the eagerly awaited second ad for its...
Second installment of Bravia campaign to debut online
by Danielle Long, , 12 July 2006, 3:30pm
LONDON - Sony will break the eagerly awaited second ad for its...
Sony launches major digital drive to back Bravia launch
by Emma Rigby, , 02 November 2005, 00:00am
LONDON - Sony Consumer Electronics has unveiled a digital push as part...
, 31 December 2006, 12:00pm
A massive creative success, Sony Bravia's 'Balls' campaign was also a lesson...
Sony Bravia: Domino City
Staff, , 23 March 2009, 7:05pm
LONDON - Paint, bunnies, balls and now dominos are used to promote...
Sony Bravia and Immediate Future seek online PR focus
, 01 November 2007, 00:00am
Online PR will be a prime focus for the next phases of...
Sony to break new Bravia TV ad online
Danielle Long, , 20 July 2006, 00:00am
Sony plans to break the eagerly-awaited second ad for its Bravia high-definition...
Major online push as Sony launches new Bravia spot
by Danielle Long, , 13 October 2006, 2:00pm
LONDON - Sony will launch the eagerly awaited second ad for its...
Second installment of Bravia campaign to debut online
by Danielle Long, , 12 July 2006, 3:30pm
LONDON - Sony will break the eagerly awaited second ad for its...
Sony launches major digital drive to back Bravia launch
by Emma Rigby, , 02 November 2005, 00:00am
LONDON - Sony Consumer Electronics has unveiled a digital push as part...
bravia campaign of the year
The Annual 2006: Campaign of the Year - Sony Bravia
Campaign 15-Dec-06
Fallon's inspired creative vision devised the 'colour like no other' campaign, which propelled Sony's Bravia brand to the top spot in the LCD TV market.
There can be few campaigns in the past 12 months that have galvanisedpublic and professional opinion quite as extensively as Fallon's workfor Sony Bravia. If you enter the word "advert" into Google, Sony's bravia-advert.com site pops up as the second result. It's not a paid
link, merely a measure of the brand advertising's popularity.
Competition from Wieden & Kennedy's "Joga Bonito" for Nike and WCRS's"118 team" ads for 118 118 was fierce, but great creative work, provensales success and a glittering array of awards means Fallon has scoopeda rare double this year - Campaign of the Year and Agency of theYear.
The past year has presented a number of challenges for Sony Electronicsas City analysts questioned if the company would ever recover from thecrisis caused by a sharp drop in its share price last year.
Sony had already lost the portable MP3 player market to Apple, so itwas vital for it to be strong in what will be the biggest consumerelectronics battleground for the next few years - the high-definitionLCD TV market.
Bravia's launch needed to drive strong sales in a market that lacksdifferentiation: the key players still all offer comparable quality andstrikingly similar design features. A fierce price war meant that Braviatelevisions were at least £200 more expensive than the competitionwhen the brand launched.
The marketing tasks were simple but challenging: make Bravia famous andestablish it as the leading TV brand. The strategy? Own the high ground,avoid any technobabble, establish Bravia as the ultimate consumer LCD TVand offer a short-cut to the benefit of the brand over itscompetition.
The "colour like no other" campaign broke in November 2005, but thestrategy only really came into its own this year. "Balls" garnered astring of awards and was eventually given a sequel - "paint". Bravia'sownership of the high ground - both in advertising and the TV market -has been unassailable over the past year.
"Colour like no other" was developed as an integrated idea by Fallon inconjunction with Sony's media agency, OMD, and the communicationsplanning outfit Naked.
The simple message was designed to work across territories and media. Itlaunched with a teaser campaign, followed by TV and cinema spots, andwas backed up with print, PR, an online "making-of" film, digitalescalator panels and point of sale materials.
In both of its executions, "colour like no other" was launched in threephases. First came hype. Amateur footage taken of the paint detonationin Glasgow was posted on websites, including Flickr, YouTube and GoogleVideo.
Next, the launch. Both TV ads broke in the half-time break of ChampionsLeague games. The launch spots were spread online and then backed upwith a showcase phase in which the ads ran in "sit-forward" TV shows andfilms.
The results were almost instantaneous. In the six weeks that followedthe launch of the "balls" ad, Sony's share in the LCD TV market was thehighest it had been in two years. In April, five months into thecampaign, the Financial Times reported that the Sony Electronicsbusiness was starting to turn around. The paper cited the Braviacampaign as one of the key factors.
So far, "balls" has been viewed more than four million times on YouTube,making it the most popular ad in the history of the site. OMD estimatesthat the total number of views of the ad online as more than sevenmillion. "Paint" appears to be emulating its predecessor's success, withSony now the leading manufacturer in the LCD TV market and stillcharging a premium for its sets.
Nike The company had it all to do for its World Cup effort. Over theyears, it has achieved a number of successes, despite not being anofficial sponsor. The objective in 2006 was to reinforce Nike's positionas the leading football brand in Europe, and boost its credentials as adefender of the beautiful game.
The problem MindShare, the company's media agency, had was that themessage had to be simple enough for football-crazy kids here to identifywith, while still delivering on the objective of shiftingperceptions.
Titled "Joga Bonito" (Portuguese for "beautiful game"), and revolvingaround a series of expensive-looking TV spots from Wieden & KennedyAmsterdam, the campaign spawned some clever ideas that helped amplifyabove-the-line spend. First, MindShare created the Joga 3 footballtournament, pitting two teams of three against each other on a smallpitch and using the harder Futsal ball. The agency then worked to buildinterest around the culmination of the event - a live final at the thenhome of Arsenal football club, Highbury.
From running bespoke poster ads near the schools of regional tournamentwinners, to having a voicemail from Wayne Rooney sent to participants'mobiles, interest levels were boosted by clever media planning. To cashin, MindShare also struck a deal with Sky, which saw the broadcasterproduce a series of DALs (digital advertiser locations) via itsred-button technology, to broadcast the Joga 3 final live and run somegreat branded content.
More than 40,000 kids took part in Joga 3, more than 500,000 peoplewatched the core piece of branded content (a show about the soul ofBrazilian football), 300,000 visited the DALs and 900,000 viewerswatched the final.
118 118 The major challenge facing WCRS for 118 118 has changeddramatically since the launch of the company three years ago, when twogeeky runners captured the interest of the general public.
Mark Horgan, the chief executive of 118 118, says: "Competition hasre-intensified, and the national interest in the deregulation hasdecreased. The 118 numbers are no longer new - they are maturingbusinesses."
This means fresh communications are more essential in a low-interest,low-outlay area.
WCRS's strategy had to change to reflect the fact that the brand was nota new-starter, but was now a market leader. It did this by extending thecreative idea while exploiting different media channels.
The 118 118 boys went in a new direction with the creation of the 118Team (including an ad with a junior Mr T having his hair cut).
However, the brand was also extended to incorporate a viral - ahilariously funny spoof of the Honda "choir" ad, which was seen by morethan 1.2 million people.
Part of the strategy was to invest in idents, putting the brand next toLost, one of Channel 4's most popular programmes at the time, and givingit the chance to deliver more than 50 separate product messages. Therewas also a media-first of six sonic bus shelter posters that had theboys talking to anyone who walked past.
The campaign has succeeded in pushing the company's preferred choicestatus from 37 per cent to 57 per cent, while BT has gone from 27 percent to just 29 per cent. It achieved this by refusing to conform to theestablished norm of over-spending on its marketing communicationsstrategy.
Recent winners: Stella Artois (2005); Honda (2004); 118 118 (2003); JohnSmith's (2002); ITV Digital (2001)
HIGHLIGHTS OF 2006
- February: 2006 "Balls" makes its debut on London Underground digitalescalator panels. A 30-second bespoke ad runs on a 60-second loop atTottenham Court Road.
- March: "Balls" wins a gold at the BTAAs and platinum at the CreativeCircle Awards.
- May: The awards success continues with two D&AD silvers. ClemmowHornby Inge launches a spoof of the ad for Tango, using fruit instead ofballs.
- June: "Balls" walks off with two film golds at the Cannes Lions.
- July: Jonathan Glazer is lined up to direct "paint", the sequel to"balls". He shoots the ad in Glasgow later that month.
- August: YouTube, Flickr and Google Video feature amateur footage of"paint"; Sony posts more footage on the bravia-advert.com site.
- October: "Paint" launches in the Champions League football matchbetween FC Copenhagen and Manchester United.
Campaign 15-Dec-06
Fallon's inspired creative vision devised the 'colour like no other' campaign, which propelled Sony's Bravia brand to the top spot in the LCD TV market.
There can be few campaigns in the past 12 months that have galvanisedpublic and professional opinion quite as extensively as Fallon's workfor Sony Bravia. If you enter the word "advert" into Google, Sony's bravia-advert.com site pops up as the second result. It's not a paid
link, merely a measure of the brand advertising's popularity.
Competition from Wieden & Kennedy's "Joga Bonito" for Nike and WCRS's"118 team" ads for 118 118 was fierce, but great creative work, provensales success and a glittering array of awards means Fallon has scoopeda rare double this year - Campaign of the Year and Agency of theYear.
The past year has presented a number of challenges for Sony Electronicsas City analysts questioned if the company would ever recover from thecrisis caused by a sharp drop in its share price last year.
Sony had already lost the portable MP3 player market to Apple, so itwas vital for it to be strong in what will be the biggest consumerelectronics battleground for the next few years - the high-definitionLCD TV market.
Bravia's launch needed to drive strong sales in a market that lacksdifferentiation: the key players still all offer comparable quality andstrikingly similar design features. A fierce price war meant that Braviatelevisions were at least £200 more expensive than the competitionwhen the brand launched.
The marketing tasks were simple but challenging: make Bravia famous andestablish it as the leading TV brand. The strategy? Own the high ground,avoid any technobabble, establish Bravia as the ultimate consumer LCD TVand offer a short-cut to the benefit of the brand over itscompetition.
The "colour like no other" campaign broke in November 2005, but thestrategy only really came into its own this year. "Balls" garnered astring of awards and was eventually given a sequel - "paint". Bravia'sownership of the high ground - both in advertising and the TV market -has been unassailable over the past year.
"Colour like no other" was developed as an integrated idea by Fallon inconjunction with Sony's media agency, OMD, and the communicationsplanning outfit Naked.
The simple message was designed to work across territories and media. Itlaunched with a teaser campaign, followed by TV and cinema spots, andwas backed up with print, PR, an online "making-of" film, digitalescalator panels and point of sale materials.
In both of its executions, "colour like no other" was launched in threephases. First came hype. Amateur footage taken of the paint detonationin Glasgow was posted on websites, including Flickr, YouTube and GoogleVideo.
Next, the launch. Both TV ads broke in the half-time break of ChampionsLeague games. The launch spots were spread online and then backed upwith a showcase phase in which the ads ran in "sit-forward" TV shows andfilms.
The results were almost instantaneous. In the six weeks that followedthe launch of the "balls" ad, Sony's share in the LCD TV market was thehighest it had been in two years. In April, five months into thecampaign, the Financial Times reported that the Sony Electronicsbusiness was starting to turn around. The paper cited the Braviacampaign as one of the key factors.
So far, "balls" has been viewed more than four million times on YouTube,making it the most popular ad in the history of the site. OMD estimatesthat the total number of views of the ad online as more than sevenmillion. "Paint" appears to be emulating its predecessor's success, withSony now the leading manufacturer in the LCD TV market and stillcharging a premium for its sets.
Nike The company had it all to do for its World Cup effort. Over theyears, it has achieved a number of successes, despite not being anofficial sponsor. The objective in 2006 was to reinforce Nike's positionas the leading football brand in Europe, and boost its credentials as adefender of the beautiful game.
The problem MindShare, the company's media agency, had was that themessage had to be simple enough for football-crazy kids here to identifywith, while still delivering on the objective of shiftingperceptions.
Titled "Joga Bonito" (Portuguese for "beautiful game"), and revolvingaround a series of expensive-looking TV spots from Wieden & KennedyAmsterdam, the campaign spawned some clever ideas that helped amplifyabove-the-line spend. First, MindShare created the Joga 3 footballtournament, pitting two teams of three against each other on a smallpitch and using the harder Futsal ball. The agency then worked to buildinterest around the culmination of the event - a live final at the thenhome of Arsenal football club, Highbury.
From running bespoke poster ads near the schools of regional tournamentwinners, to having a voicemail from Wayne Rooney sent to participants'mobiles, interest levels were boosted by clever media planning. To cashin, MindShare also struck a deal with Sky, which saw the broadcasterproduce a series of DALs (digital advertiser locations) via itsred-button technology, to broadcast the Joga 3 final live and run somegreat branded content.
More than 40,000 kids took part in Joga 3, more than 500,000 peoplewatched the core piece of branded content (a show about the soul ofBrazilian football), 300,000 visited the DALs and 900,000 viewerswatched the final.
118 118 The major challenge facing WCRS for 118 118 has changeddramatically since the launch of the company three years ago, when twogeeky runners captured the interest of the general public.
Mark Horgan, the chief executive of 118 118, says: "Competition hasre-intensified, and the national interest in the deregulation hasdecreased. The 118 numbers are no longer new - they are maturingbusinesses."
This means fresh communications are more essential in a low-interest,low-outlay area.
WCRS's strategy had to change to reflect the fact that the brand was nota new-starter, but was now a market leader. It did this by extending thecreative idea while exploiting different media channels.
The 118 118 boys went in a new direction with the creation of the 118Team (including an ad with a junior Mr T having his hair cut).
However, the brand was also extended to incorporate a viral - ahilariously funny spoof of the Honda "choir" ad, which was seen by morethan 1.2 million people.
Part of the strategy was to invest in idents, putting the brand next toLost, one of Channel 4's most popular programmes at the time, and givingit the chance to deliver more than 50 separate product messages. Therewas also a media-first of six sonic bus shelter posters that had theboys talking to anyone who walked past.
The campaign has succeeded in pushing the company's preferred choicestatus from 37 per cent to 57 per cent, while BT has gone from 27 percent to just 29 per cent. It achieved this by refusing to conform to theestablished norm of over-spending on its marketing communicationsstrategy.
Recent winners: Stella Artois (2005); Honda (2004); 118 118 (2003); JohnSmith's (2002); ITV Digital (2001)
HIGHLIGHTS OF 2006
- February: 2006 "Balls" makes its debut on London Underground digitalescalator panels. A 30-second bespoke ad runs on a 60-second loop atTottenham Court Road.
- March: "Balls" wins a gold at the BTAAs and platinum at the CreativeCircle Awards.
- May: The awards success continues with two D&AD silvers. ClemmowHornby Inge launches a spoof of the ad for Tango, using fruit instead ofballs.
- June: "Balls" walks off with two film golds at the Cannes Lions.
- July: Jonathan Glazer is lined up to direct "paint", the sequel to"balls". He shoots the ad in Glasgow later that month.
- August: YouTube, Flickr and Google Video feature amateur footage of"paint"; Sony posts more footage on the bravia-advert.com site.
- October: "Paint" launches in the Champions League football matchbetween FC Copenhagen and Manchester United.
Bravia campaign
Sony Bravia: Campaigns like no other
Revolution UK, 31 December 2006, 12:00pm
A massive creative success, Sony Bravia's 'Balls' campaign was also a lesson in how to think '2.0', reports Victoria Furness.
San Francisco's residents were understandably bemused when they saw 250,000 bouncy balls being fired down their streets in rapid succession last summer. It's a sign of the times that the city's folk didn't just talk about it with their neighbours and friends, but told the rest of the world when they wrote about it online and posted images of what they'd seen on user-generated content sites like Flickr, YouTube and iFilm.
"We started to think: there's an opportunity here to really start engaging with the audience in a way that's slightly different to traditional advertising," recalls Ranzie Anthony, founding partner of Tonic, the digital agency that worked on the 'Balls' campaign for Sony with media partner OMD Digital.
"The initial blogging activity made us realise people had a really warm feeling towards this ad campaign, so we wanted to encourage that as much as possible and let it roll on its own," adds Ruth Speakman, European PR manager for Sony Europe.
Rather than barge into the conversation taking place online about the mysterious, bouncy balls, Sony decided to feed the talk by providing a 'blog-fodder' site at Bravia-advert.com. On this site, visitors were given access to high-definition images, behind-the-scenes video clips, wallpaper and screensavers, which they could download and share. These were provided by Fallon, the creative agency behind the TV campaign.
A week later, an exclusive 60-second clip of the TV ad was added to Bravia-advert.com. Then, once the TV ad went live, the full-length version was posted on the site and seeded on to both Flickr and YouTube. The Bravia site also included a link to a traditional product-focused microsite, focused specifically on the benefits of Sony Bravia's LCD TV range.
"We tried to make the content as accessible as possible," says Anthony. "So, visitors can download assets to Sony PSP devices or their mobile. The aim was to encourage people to share content." At the same time, Tonic was conscious of ensuring the site was easy to use, "so we made sure visitors could increase the text size or use a screenreader".
Many firms are wary of web 2.0 sites as they have no control over what happens to their brand. Sony's 'Balls' push spawned many copycat clips online and even spoofs from other brands, such as Tango with its bouncing fruit. Yet, Sony was prepared to see what happened and, says Speakman, the experience has "wakened Sony to the possibilities of what can be achieved."
Anthony adds: "I think this was a re-education process for Sony because this medium is not like traditional broadcast or banner advertising, where we can control the messaging. On these social media sites, the user is in control and all we can do is encourage the conversation to go in a particular direction. We did it by creating assets for people to share on Bravia-advert."
Paid off
The unproven nature of web 2.0 campaigns meant there were lots of discussions at the planning stage over how many assets to release, and when, in order to keep visitors interested, without revealing too much of the TV ad before it aired.
However, letting users do the talking for the brand paid off handsomely. "We monitored site traffic against references to the site from the Technorati search engine and tallied it every day," says Fred Whitton, digital manager at OMD Digital. Its tracking found 17,500 sites were linked to Bravia-advert.com; more than two million people visited the site; the TV ad had 1.8 million views on the site and was downloaded 40,000 times; and there were an estimated seven million further viewings on Google Video, YouTube and other web 2.0 sites. And, although the push was pan-European, it had a global reach, with a number of Bravia visitors hailing from the US.
OMD monitored visitors' browsers and found the balance shifted from Safari (Mac) and FireFox to Internet Explorer users during the campaign, indicating that it extended beyond the target group of 'digital influencers' to a mainstream audience. "We have strong evidence showing sales increased when only the blogging and Bravia-advert site were live," adds Whitton.
With such fantastic results - not to mention a few industry gongs for the agencies involved in the campaign - it's not surprising that Sony decided to step up the web 2.0 online activities for its latest 'Paint' campaign (see box) to make it even bigger and better than its predecessor.
SONY BRAVIA CREATES 'PAINT' SPLASH
Sony Bravia's latest 'Paint' campaign not only involved more web 2.0 sites, but also saw more web 2.0 features added to Bravia-advert.com.
What's more, the full-length TV ad was shown online on the morning of October 17, before being aired on TV that same evening.
Planning for the online part of the campaign began earlier than that for 'Balls', even though the brief was the same: to reinforce the brand message that Sony Bravia delivers 'colour like no other' and raise awareness among 'digital influencers'.
Building on the knowledge gleaned from 'Balls', the web element was foremost in the communications planning strategy right from the start. "This time around, we selected three bloggers, invited them to Glasgow for the shoot, and gave them behind-the-scenes access and a Sony digital camera each," says Tonic's Anthony.
Rather than waiting for passers-by and the bloggers to post their content online, Sony pre-empted them by putting a short 'making of' clip on Bravia-advert.com, along with some images that revealed the paint theme, but didn't spoil the TV ad. Further content was drip-fed gradually on to the site in the run-up to the TV broadcast.
"We looked at how we could build on the anticipation of the ads because we knew people would be interested, so we started to feed into conversation that Sony might use paint. Immediate Future reported what conversations were happening out there, so we could respond in a way that elongated discussions," explains Anthony.
The clips were also seeded on more sites; not just Flickr and YouTube, but also Grouper (a Sony-owned video-sharing site). The three bloggers' own sites carried links. Tonic is also in talks with Sony Play-Station and Sony Ericsson about sharing content for 'Paint' on their sites.
Bravia-advert.com was improved and its domain name changed to Colourlikenoother.com to tie in with Sony Bravia's branding. This time, Vividas technology was used to stream the TV ad on the site and an RSS feed added to tell visitors when new content is posted. An online game was also launched internally to promote 'Paint' to staff. The game held the top spot on Channel 4's games site at the time of going to press.
With 'Paint', Sony has been more proactive in using its site to contribute to blog debates. As some bloggers were concerned about the environmental repercussions of firing 70,000 litres of paint on a derelict tower block, "we posted information on the clean-up process and pointed out that the paint was drinkable", says Anthony.
More agencies were also involved; not just OMD, but also Freud PR (overall PR strategy), Immediate Future (blogging relations) and Spannerworks (traffic measurement).
It's early days, but, during the week the TV ad aired, there were more than one million user sessions. The expectation is that 'Paint' will be even more successful than 'Balls'.
Revolution UK, 31 December 2006, 12:00pm
A massive creative success, Sony Bravia's 'Balls' campaign was also a lesson in how to think '2.0', reports Victoria Furness.
San Francisco's residents were understandably bemused when they saw 250,000 bouncy balls being fired down their streets in rapid succession last summer. It's a sign of the times that the city's folk didn't just talk about it with their neighbours and friends, but told the rest of the world when they wrote about it online and posted images of what they'd seen on user-generated content sites like Flickr, YouTube and iFilm.
"We started to think: there's an opportunity here to really start engaging with the audience in a way that's slightly different to traditional advertising," recalls Ranzie Anthony, founding partner of Tonic, the digital agency that worked on the 'Balls' campaign for Sony with media partner OMD Digital.
"The initial blogging activity made us realise people had a really warm feeling towards this ad campaign, so we wanted to encourage that as much as possible and let it roll on its own," adds Ruth Speakman, European PR manager for Sony Europe.
Rather than barge into the conversation taking place online about the mysterious, bouncy balls, Sony decided to feed the talk by providing a 'blog-fodder' site at Bravia-advert.com. On this site, visitors were given access to high-definition images, behind-the-scenes video clips, wallpaper and screensavers, which they could download and share. These were provided by Fallon, the creative agency behind the TV campaign.
A week later, an exclusive 60-second clip of the TV ad was added to Bravia-advert.com. Then, once the TV ad went live, the full-length version was posted on the site and seeded on to both Flickr and YouTube. The Bravia site also included a link to a traditional product-focused microsite, focused specifically on the benefits of Sony Bravia's LCD TV range.
"We tried to make the content as accessible as possible," says Anthony. "So, visitors can download assets to Sony PSP devices or their mobile. The aim was to encourage people to share content." At the same time, Tonic was conscious of ensuring the site was easy to use, "so we made sure visitors could increase the text size or use a screenreader".
Many firms are wary of web 2.0 sites as they have no control over what happens to their brand. Sony's 'Balls' push spawned many copycat clips online and even spoofs from other brands, such as Tango with its bouncing fruit. Yet, Sony was prepared to see what happened and, says Speakman, the experience has "wakened Sony to the possibilities of what can be achieved."
Anthony adds: "I think this was a re-education process for Sony because this medium is not like traditional broadcast or banner advertising, where we can control the messaging. On these social media sites, the user is in control and all we can do is encourage the conversation to go in a particular direction. We did it by creating assets for people to share on Bravia-advert."
Paid off
The unproven nature of web 2.0 campaigns meant there were lots of discussions at the planning stage over how many assets to release, and when, in order to keep visitors interested, without revealing too much of the TV ad before it aired.
However, letting users do the talking for the brand paid off handsomely. "We monitored site traffic against references to the site from the Technorati search engine and tallied it every day," says Fred Whitton, digital manager at OMD Digital. Its tracking found 17,500 sites were linked to Bravia-advert.com; more than two million people visited the site; the TV ad had 1.8 million views on the site and was downloaded 40,000 times; and there were an estimated seven million further viewings on Google Video, YouTube and other web 2.0 sites. And, although the push was pan-European, it had a global reach, with a number of Bravia visitors hailing from the US.
OMD monitored visitors' browsers and found the balance shifted from Safari (Mac) and FireFox to Internet Explorer users during the campaign, indicating that it extended beyond the target group of 'digital influencers' to a mainstream audience. "We have strong evidence showing sales increased when only the blogging and Bravia-advert site were live," adds Whitton.
With such fantastic results - not to mention a few industry gongs for the agencies involved in the campaign - it's not surprising that Sony decided to step up the web 2.0 online activities for its latest 'Paint' campaign (see box) to make it even bigger and better than its predecessor.
SONY BRAVIA CREATES 'PAINT' SPLASH
Sony Bravia's latest 'Paint' campaign not only involved more web 2.0 sites, but also saw more web 2.0 features added to Bravia-advert.com.
What's more, the full-length TV ad was shown online on the morning of October 17, before being aired on TV that same evening.
Planning for the online part of the campaign began earlier than that for 'Balls', even though the brief was the same: to reinforce the brand message that Sony Bravia delivers 'colour like no other' and raise awareness among 'digital influencers'.
Building on the knowledge gleaned from 'Balls', the web element was foremost in the communications planning strategy right from the start. "This time around, we selected three bloggers, invited them to Glasgow for the shoot, and gave them behind-the-scenes access and a Sony digital camera each," says Tonic's Anthony.
Rather than waiting for passers-by and the bloggers to post their content online, Sony pre-empted them by putting a short 'making of' clip on Bravia-advert.com, along with some images that revealed the paint theme, but didn't spoil the TV ad. Further content was drip-fed gradually on to the site in the run-up to the TV broadcast.
"We looked at how we could build on the anticipation of the ads because we knew people would be interested, so we started to feed into conversation that Sony might use paint. Immediate Future reported what conversations were happening out there, so we could respond in a way that elongated discussions," explains Anthony.
The clips were also seeded on more sites; not just Flickr and YouTube, but also Grouper (a Sony-owned video-sharing site). The three bloggers' own sites carried links. Tonic is also in talks with Sony Play-Station and Sony Ericsson about sharing content for 'Paint' on their sites.
Bravia-advert.com was improved and its domain name changed to Colourlikenoother.com to tie in with Sony Bravia's branding. This time, Vividas technology was used to stream the TV ad on the site and an RSS feed added to tell visitors when new content is posted. An online game was also launched internally to promote 'Paint' to staff. The game held the top spot on Channel 4's games site at the time of going to press.
With 'Paint', Sony has been more proactive in using its site to contribute to blog debates. As some bloggers were concerned about the environmental repercussions of firing 70,000 litres of paint on a derelict tower block, "we posted information on the clean-up process and pointed out that the paint was drinkable", says Anthony.
More agencies were also involved; not just OMD, but also Freud PR (overall PR strategy), Immediate Future (blogging relations) and Spannerworks (traffic measurement).
It's early days, but, during the week the TV ad aired, there were more than one million user sessions. The expectation is that 'Paint' will be even more successful than 'Balls'.
Saturday, 20 June 2009
I on News
great bit on news coverage, innuendo and so much more
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=229026&title=i-on-news
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=229026&title=i-on-news
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