Sony Play-Doh

When Fallon London, filmed the Sony “Balls” commercial, they
were aghast when their ad was broadcast before they had even seen
the first edit. The citizens of San Francisco, watching half a million
balls bouncing down their streets, had used their camera phones
and camcorders to make their own ads for Sony.



When Fallon shot the second ad in the series, “Paint”, they were
better prepared and dripped a series of clues into the blogosphere
about what the idea was and where they planned to film it. So,
when they arrived at the Glasgow block they were about to blow
up, a crowd of 150 awaited them – and an enterprising guy in a van
selling beefburgers. With the third commercial, “Play-Doh”, Sony
are wised up to what marketers now call “social networking”. In
other words, online chat.

Long before “Play-Doh” aired last Friday, they had released plenty
of glimpses of plasticine bunnies hopping around New York.
Type in “Sony Balls” into Google and you get given ove 250,000
pages you can go to. Click in “Sony Bunnies” and there are
950,000. ‘Nuff said.

In the new order TV advertising simply drives viewers to another
medium where they can have a more immersive experience.
So, we aren’t allowed to show you the commercial itself but we can
direct you to www.colourlikenoother.com, where you can be
immersed. And, hey, it’s a good site.

Did you know that carrots were purple until 250 years ago? This
and other interesting colour-related trivia is all yours as and when
you click.

In the meantime, sales of Sony Bravia TV’s continue to soar. After
the “Balls” commercial had run four weeks, it was pulled from 13
markets – because they had run out of tellies to sell.

This campaign makes me proud to be in advertising. And green
with jealousy.

/Patrick Collister/