Soundville: Creativity at its best, but will it sell you a Sony?
Posted on October 7, 2009 - Filed Under Advertising, culture |
Let’s just begin under the obvious assumption that 99% of advertising is utter bile. So, any criticism leveled at Fallon London director/creative/wizard Juan Cabral must be taken with the proverbial bucket of salt. Cabral is the guy responsible for some of the best Fallon creative over the last few years (also the worst, read: Trucks), starting with Balls, moving on to Paint, then Play-Doh, a quick diversion over to Cadbury for a Gorilla and now back to Sony. With Soundville.
Creativity has a great Q&A with Cabral about this latest effort, the details of which I’ll leave for you to go there and read, but rest assured it’s all very cool, eclectic, original and creative. (Cliff Notes: Town of 400 in Iceland hooked up with speakers for a week, all set up with the help of Sigur Ros technicians. All the bells and whistles. Hot. Shit.) And yet, in the end, I can’t help but feel like the story, effort and general creativity behind the idea come off more impressive than the actual film. All these snazzy background details go a long way to give industry nerds and creative folk an adverchubby, but will it really get Tommy Whogivesasweethell to buy a Sony over a Samsung? Is that even the point?
With something like Balls, Paint and Play-Doh (KozynDan controversy aside), the visuals and/or music pretty much grab the viewer by the throat and force them to pay attention. A relatively quick payoff, is what I’m saying. Here, we have a moody, mellow, surreality that doesn’t quite pack the same punch. Don’t get me wrong, I dig trippy atmospheric hoo-haa as much as the next rube, but am I quite ready to trot out and buy a TV any time soon? I like to think I support brands who in turn support creative endeavor. Hell, there’s a reason I smell like my grandfather. But I’m not quite sure this one will hit the high watermark set by Cabral’s earlier efforts.
All that said, let’s not get bogged down in how this affects sales numbers and those sorts of dirty ins and outs. In the interest of raising the overall bar of ad creative, I tip a pint to Mr. Cabral, Fallon and Sony and say, in the words of the great Ernie Anastos, “Keep fuckin’ that chicken.”
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