On Sony Lot, Creating Own Identity Is Pavlov’s Dogma

It’s hard to stand out at a big, creative place such as the Sony Pictures Studios lot in Culver City. Almost as hard as making a TV commercial stand out on the crowded airwaves.

The people at Pavlov Productions had experience at the latter, so they set out to do the former when they launched Pavlov in 1996 as the in-house TV commercial production company for Sony Pictures Entertainment.

“We’re basically a boutique within a large studio, so it was important for us to have a place that didn’t feel like every other office on the lot,” said Tracy Hauser, executive producer at Pavlov, which has created commercials for such prominent advertisers as McDonald’s, Anheuser-Busch and AT&T.;

Hauser said having a distinctive identity was important for Pavlov both inside and outside the studio. Internally, to foster an environment conducive to creativity. Externally, to convey that creativity to clients.

She said Pavlov’s staff of 12, including five commercial directors, has to sell its services to Sony as well as to the outside advertising agencies for which Pavlov produces commercials.

To achieve that identity, the Pavlov people have furnished their offices with an eclectic mix of furniture, drawings, scientific equipment, playful displays, and odds and ends salvaged from Sony’s prop department: a microscope, specimen jars and beakers, a model of a human skeleton, old filing cabinets, gun-metal-gray desks, period lamps and old black-and-white educational photos.

Blowups of the company’s three logos--a lab-coated scientist, a ringing bell and a drooling dog--are mounted on corrugated cardboard displays.

The effect is to evoke Pavlov’s distinct identity as a production house while suggesting, tongue in cheek, that its commercials produce a conditioned response in viewers.

“We bid on every Sony job just as we bid on the other jobs, so we have to win on our merits,” Hauser said. “The clients we work with and the people who work for us are creative, so we have to foster a creative environment.”