Excellent! I really like the symbolism with the spot.

Chad

What must be true in order for this to work?...."Everybody's using it"....or similar. So, in a sense, it's a backwards compliment. If 'everybody's using it', maybe it's good, great, better, the best...



Plus, I don't want to be unique.

I want to be better, mightier, more creative, less techgeek, more artist, less time under the hood, more time envisioning and creating. I want real time preview. I want more performance for my equipment dollar. I want a shallower learning curve, higher reliability, better tools, open architecture, more plugins, a good (helpful, involved) user community and customer support, maximum leverage of every electron flowing corrosively through my overclocked CPU.



Cool imagery...a professional feel....what if the guys had those white iPxd wires running from ears to front pocket, and a more glazed brain dead look in the eyes.... I wish the imagery matched 'imagine the impossible' more graphically.

30 seconds is pretty short....


OK, that's my take, I've got the fire extinquisher handy....

[it would probably take me a month to do something as well executed.]



And, DSE, thanks for posting, and for all your work in these forums.



Like i said earlier, Sony oughta create a contest to leverage their user's creativity and loyalty. Big prizes (can you spell EX...) and face time on the loop at the NAB booth... "you did THAT in Vegas...No way! Yep, 100% in Vegas..."

needs more cowbell

:-)

Love it!

Edited in FCP.

Just kidding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Very good although I might have dressed up the Vegas GUI a bit, the native colour scheme doesn't do it justice.

What really got me was what Youtube came up with after I watched the Vegas 8 video, warning it's pretty blue but hilarious:



Bob.

Well done, except that NOWHERE does it say what Vegas actually is.

It's nice. The only problem I have is if I know I'm about to download an advertisement, I will stop and go somewhere else. I watched this, because I use Vegas and curiosity got to me. But I wouldn't bother otherwise.
Now, maybe some football players jumping off and then showing it at the Super Bowl ... well, a lot of people would see it, but probably a waste of big money.
Put it on G4 and start selling teenagers on it.

Nice. Where will it run? Network? Cable?

i love that everyone is holding an apple and it's in an all white world ( for those too slow to pick up on it I always like to try and state the obvious ).

I think the advert is good, and it's clear that this is a video app by the footage, I also think that it's holds on to the "like no other" theme they've been running with Vegas.

THANK YOU SONY for promoting your software, in the last two years I've seen it show up more and more, and I appreciate the effort being made, keep it up :)

Dave

I had several product management jobs before I started my first company. I therefore worked with many outside creative agencies (PR, advertising, marcom, etc.).

On almost every level, this ad fails.

You first must ask what you expect the ad to do for you. Why are you spending this money? In this case it is pretty clear that the expectation is to get users of competitive products to switch.

The opening "high concept" lemming video is actually quite excellent and provides a good hook, but then the whole thing switches to some amazingly lame video of nothing but computer screens, with a voiceover telling us that this product is "more intuitive" and other such vague generalities. This is absolutely horrible on two counts. First, you should never waste any marketing money on claims like "faster" or "easier to use." This means nothing to anyone, and has about as much impact on an prospective customer as "ours is the best." Yeah, right. Rah, rah for you. Remember, advertising cannot be expected to actually cause a prospect to purchase a product. Instead, you are trying to create brand preference (like the Pepsi-Coke wars), or in the case of a relatively obscure product like Vegas, you are trying to create awareness.

Second, if your product really IS more intuitive, then either figure out how to show it, or else try to think like the master of all marketing, namely Apple. If they wanted to show intuitive, they would show someone raising their eyebrow, and then have the product appear to react. They definitely would not attempt to describe it or show it directly, or simply claim it.

It's great when you can actually directly demonstrate a product benefit (David Ogilvy, the founder of Ogilvy and Mather was a big fan of this). However, that's tough to do in 30 seconds or even three minutes, so you have to use a powerful proxy.

So, my advice to whoever created the ad is to use it as a starting point for future ad development, but do NOT waste your money placing this ad. And, as always, whatever ad you place, measure, measure measure. Know what you're getting for your ad dollar.

Well, John, I think the ad is a good start, Like the seconding meeting type ;-) the ad is great for youtube market, G4.... The small apple is a slick shot over the bow, I think they should refine the apple image, so its quickly ID, without changing the scene. Like increasing the encoder rate for "layer -zone block" defining the apple.

Some good comments John. Let's try and continue the constructive theme by making (possibly) useful suggestions. Here's mine:

If the underlying aim is to differentiate from FCP, don't show a Colour Correction Screen which is quite similar to theirs. Instead, how about showing one of Vegas' great strengths, maybe using an expression like "See and hear what you're doing, as you do it" and show a sequence of slider/setting tweaks to video and audio with instant changes on the Preview Screen.

Irrespective, it's good to see something happening in this direction

Aren't we all jumping to a lot of conclusions here?
Where is this spot being run?
Who are the target audience?

Reagrdless, let's say it convinced me. I run down to my local Sony shop to buy it. Oops, no, sorry sir, you want to edit video, we can sell you a nice Vaio with PPro already installed. Somewhat taken aback I drive to the biggest Sony dealership here and well no, sorry sir, Sony recommends Avid. Eventually I find what I'm looking for, on a general purpose computer retailers shelves. I try to get some input from the salesman about this amazing product but he convinces me that something else from Pinnancle / Ulead is much easier to use. Or if I really like he too can sell me a Vaio with..... I nearly choke and finally he gets it, I must be after something "Pro". So he sells me a Mac.

Bob.

Bob,
Nice you tube video!
kairosmatt

Cool :), it reflect well vegas.

I want to watch more spots from SCS.

And hope next time instead of sony color corrector feature
SCS will show SONY MOTION TRACKING feature.

I have to jump back in on this one. First I respect everyones comments, they have actually allowed me to have some insight for future projects, but at the same time I think the ad does a good job in 30 secs of expressing the fact that there is an alternative.

Apple has done a wonderful job in advertising their products and they have successfully made people spend money foolishly. Apple marketing is the bully of peer pressure, meaning if you don't do it.... then your not one of us.

The ad just does a plain and simple approach to expressing something that was told to me in my youth... if your friend jumps of the bridge are you going to follow...

Now I could go on a rant about the whole Mac vs. PC debate, but I will limit myself to say that its not a hardware war, but OS war.

Well thats just a few more cents of my opinion,

Thanks,

Chad

JohnMeyer is absolutely RIGHT. (btw I'm also a huge Ogilvy fan, along with others like Caples et al)

I'm one of the world's top internet marketers and copywriters. I've sold millions and I know ads and direct response like the back of my hand.

This is an absolutely awful madison-avenue style ad that does NOTHING to answer the critical questions of:

"What are the key benefits/features/advantages that Vegas offers over the competition?"

"Why should I care about using Vegas?"

"What's the USP/unique sales proposition that Vegas offers me that others don't?"

"Why this product, why now, what advantages does it offer?"

Instead, it's a poorly-conceived "attack ad" (like political attack ads) that's only message is, "woo don't be a lemming buy our product instead". Whoever put together this ad concept should be fired, along with whatever bonehead executive committee at Sony approved it.

Hint: study commercials that have direct-response hooks, advantages, why the prospect should consider switching, ANYTHING but a lame attack ad that does NOTHING to answer the question of why I should care about Vegas.

This ad fails on so many levels it's ridiculous.


Ken
sitefomercials.com
copywritinguniversity.com
sellinguniversity.com
and 64 others..

great ad, Spot!

btw I'm also a huge Ogilvy fan, along with others like Caples et al

He was a genius. http://www.amazon.com/Ogilvy-onAdvertising-David/dp/039472903X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201277496&sr=8-1Ogilvy on Advertising[/link] is a book everyone connected with advertising should read. Absolutely brilliant.

It bothers me when someone will criticise something, but not offer anything constructive.
It's easy to knock something down.
How do you rebuild - by bashing? Naw.

OK, here's my 2 cents that I've thought about for all of 1.25 minutes:

Open with a split screen of four people: a professional videographer (in appropriate attire for a quick read), A dad with a handy-cam (Sony, of course), a college student and a yuppy-video guy.
Quick shots of all four getting their shots and sitting down at their computer (forget digitizing). Now the first three are happy as they edit, color correct, add a sound track and show their projects to their client, family, class. The last guy is still sitting, waiting for a render.

HAHA! Ok. Maybe that only works in my head, but at least it's a positive offering. :-)

It bothers me when someone will criticise something, but not offer anything constructive.

Fair enough, but my goal in my criticism was not to tell Sony specifically how to create a better ad: there are a million ways to do that. Instead, my goal was to get them to realize how to evaluate what they have done and determine whether it is worth spending the considerable money it will take to place this ad, either on TV or on Internet sites: Better to cut your losses and not run an ineffective ad than to waste money running it just because you've spent the money to create it.

And, I DID offer a really big "hint" on how to improve it: avoid the didactic "faster, better, easier-to-use" elements of the second part of the ad and instead stay with the high concept approach that introduces the ad. The first and second parts of the ad are jarringly dissimilar.

If this is really a Sony ad, for mainstream - I have an idea.

Make it a competition in this forum!

Many users on here are rather talented. There is the baseline video, now allow people the opportunity to make a better one if they think they can (and offer a prize of course..lol)

? - Imagine the impossible - Sony users creating a sony ad :)