Ditto everything Johnmeyer said.

I'm hoping that this ad is merely a mockup and was not the result of hours of agency meetings, rewrites, and Sony mucky-muck input.

Besides the points already mentioned, it appears the take-away is "Use Vegas, not FCP." however IMO it makes more sense for Sony to position itself as the first choice in Windows NLE's. No FCP user is going to switch to Windows and Vegas. Apple users are all aware that they've "drank the Kool-Aid", and it's not worth going up against that. Sony should be advertising that Vegas is a better choice than Avid and Premiere.

Well, they stole suggestions from us before Vegas 8 was released.
Maybe we should just design some ads ourselves and post them. Maybe someone will come up with something that will knock their socks off and they might use. Hopefully, you'll be compensated, but don't hold your breath.

great idea, mrjoddy, I actually really like your ad idea, that would've been *much* better, to do, as you said, a:

"product in use" shot, from several different market segments in 3 of 4 windows

that's a solid idea, credible, and that type of ad would be a major improvement and would be super. nice work on the concept! let's hope Sony's listening, for their sake.

-k

As it turns out great ideas do not make great ads. You can build the 'killer' ad but you're left with a problem, everyone loves the ad, everyone remembers the ad but no one is influenced by the ad.
When you understand how memory works, why we remember things and how associations are built in our memory then you can build very powerful advertising. It all works at a subliminal level, you can for example corrupt a competitors campaign by hooking the retained memory of images from their campaign into a negative emotion. Then they are screwed, everytime we see their ad it enforces the implanted negative connection.
Building such advertising is pretty tricky, asking study groups what their response to the ad is, is useless, you need to study what is happening inside their brains using PET or similar high resolution brain activity scanning to start to get some clues as to how your ad is working.
For example, in this ad we have the lemmings holding apples. We think about it and rationally realise what they're having a dig at. Except that's not retained as an association in memory, visually there's no connection between the guy with an apple and Apple's advertising. Our memory banks have probably stored that image along with Adam and Eve, it's probably influencing our feelings about Genesis not Apple.

I suspect political advertising can be a good example of this. In many cases pre election polls get the result spectularly wrong. They're asking as at a conscious level what we're thinking. Except most elections are decided by swinging voters. They really don't know until they're in the polling booth having to put a tick in a box. Then emotive responses come to bear, ask them why they ticked the box they did as they leave and they'll rationalise what they did but not really know the real answer. I think our last election campaign was decided in this way. The country is doing very nicely on almost all fronts, almost all of us are wealthier than we've ever been so why did we throw out the government in one of ths biggest landslides in our history?
The trade unions had an ad campaign against Workchoices. One or two of the ads had very emotive images that hook straight into the subscious. When the swinging voter was dithering over which box to tick on polling day that negative emotion would have been a powerful decider. Rationally there was nothing to make a choice other than more of the same if they ticked one box but it had been linked to a powerful negative, didn't matter that the reason they were so well off was linked to the same issue, we don't react to logic, we react to emotion.

Bob.

Right, Bob. Remember the Paris Hilton sexy burger ad? What fast food company was it for?

hmm all I remember is seeing her on the car ... the "spicy paris" ad spot..

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8831489349678412072


I thought it was for burger king, actually it was for carl's jr.. heck who wants burgers anyways after seeing that ad?

btw here's a spoof of the ad with a hairy guy, funny parody:
http://www.kewego.com/video/iLyROoaftv93.html


Hey maybe Sony can sign Paris to do a "Paris Does Vegas" spot... :-)

-k

I love this ad. I think it hits the target it's aiming at. Of course, I might be wrong, since I don't know what target they're aiming at. I'm assuming that they're aiming at people who know what video editing is, but think that the only real platform for video editing is Final Cut. I meet gobs of people like that all the time. Just like photographers and graphic artists who think that you have to have a mac for doing that kind of work. That has been untrue for a very long time, but it is still a commonly held belief by many, many people. Not anyone here. We are, like it or not, an elite group of computer users. (doesn't mean our work is any good, though). It isn't targeted at us, so it doesn't say things we might want Sony to say about Vegas.

It's Sony, finally waking up to the apple marketing juggernaut, and fighting back, because those "mac guy/pc guy" ads are exactly like negative political ads, they're basically saying that the mac is cool and the pc sucks, and if the pc sucks, then sony sucks. Negative ads need to be addressed at some point or they become the prevailing opinion, however true or untrue they are.

I don't think that this is the perfect ad, but I think it's good. It's funny enough, it references the past in clever enough ways, and gets the sony vegas name out there in 30 seconds.

maybe a Payton Manning ad, making fun of the dainty "macbook air" is in our future... sony vegas, video editing, it's in our dna.

Beware: "btw here's a spoof of the ad with a hairy guy, funny parody:" this video will cause eye and brain tissue damage!

. . and 33 posts in and we are STILL talking about! STILL analyzing it (which is a a very good thing to do!)

"No News is BAD News!" - anybody remember that one?

Truly, a lot of very fine comments here, linked to some of the best creators of ads on the Planet. I'm thinking SONY must adore this thread!!! All this expertise commenting on their ad? And all those OTHER "guests" here reading the same, and considering purchasing Vegas and knowing that all these knowledgeable ad-aware creatives use it too. Love it!

Think outside the box? . . well, http://www.munchkins.com/my lil munchkins [/link]it's just been done!

600 views and 4 comments.
Interestingly enough it was uploaded by dw87hotmail who joined Youtube 1 day ago and who lives in Australia. If that's true why is it being edited in NTSC. So unless someone is telling fibs, this is NOT a Sony ad, it could even be in breech of their trademarks.


Bob.

He-he, Bob, you take the prize!

Best analysis for sure.

Sony is incredibly conservative in its advertising. Like.no.other. (tm)

There is no way they would spoof Apple's 1984 Superbowl ad.

This could be a spec ad from somebody in the U.S. who wanted to test the waters for a possible sale to Sony. Not a bad idea for testing ads!


For many professionals, Vegas doesn't compete with FCP because it lacks certain functionality and codec support they need. This means that even if they wanted to switch, they couldn't.

So SCS needs to be selective in its advertising. It is very clear that it is leaving a lot of money on the table, as there a lot of professionals and advanced prosumers who would be better off with Vegas than with other NLEs, but they just have no idea what Vegas could do for them. The occasional capsule reviews and one page ads showing cyclists do very very little to change that.

People find a lot of comfort in knowing somebody who is using a particular product and is happy with it. This goes for professionals even more than for consumers.

MJRoddy said "OK, here's my 2 cents that I've thought about for all of 1.25 minutes..."

If we were brainstorming, I'd suggest go with that and make it a little like something from 24. The clock is running, three people get the job done and we see some final output, the third is still working and their product gets to start playing but gets cut off as the other three finish. The four people could be differernt types but they all should come off as Pros, one obviously using a Mac and the other three obviously not using a Mac. Maybe the final output is just a slick "Made with Sony Vegas" graphic and the Mac final output gets as far as saying "Made with" before it gets cut off at the knees.

My first and biggest problem with showing off Vegas on Youtube is that youtube can make things look really bad. I think you can pay for a producer account there, though, and get much sharper videos.

As for this ad holding the apple...the concept is really minimal and I kind of think it needs to be a bit less cliched...like maybe the guy is so preoccupied biting into his apple that he doesn't see the rabbit hole he's about to fall into.

What else can you do with apples? Well, bobbing for apples is probably ripe with possibilities since someone ends up sopping wet with an apple in their mouth. The apple bobber is also under water while other stuff is going on in the open air.

Rob Mack

I still wonder if it's not just someones' school/college project.

I posted the link over on the Liquid Forum to show them what actual promotion looks like, and they deleted it with a note that said they were tired of people talking about Vegas over there.

BigRockies.com Your Home in the Rockies!

A little OT - but did anyone ever see these?
(the finished product)

(the making - with vegas)

It's kind of plodding. At 4:44 TRT, it could lose about 4:14.

Content is king and the king is dead?

Rob Mack

Consider this online infomercial at the vendor's homepage:



http://www.imagineersystems.com/


It clearly stated and demonstrated, at a fast pace, what the product can do, and what it's strengths are, providing enough info to lure me further into the site.

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

Back in 2003 - Sonic Foundry's Vegas 4.0

The Vegas 90-day Challenge, a contest that challenged video editors to produce a 60-second spot using Vegas.

Sony Pictures Digital Announces Vegas 90-Day Challenge Winner: "Vegas Knock-Out" by Javier Prato




SCS time for -imagine the impossible contest-.

That was more like it. V4 rocks.

Bob.

I saw that Sony spot a couple of weeks ago while perusing digital juice. nice ad.

John

I totally agree with Bob and John: THAT ad is great stuff and makes me want to use the product. Very nice.

John, one of your earlier reply s reminded me of a superbowl ad for a savings institution. Basically a really badly done intro, then the hook was: "Well, we just wasted two-Million bucks. What are you doing with your money?"

"Well, we just wasted two-Million bucks. What are you doing with your money?"

Yeah, that was E*trade, about eight years ago. Here it is: