Will Opposites Attract Digital Phone Customers?

Advertiser: Sony Electronics

Agency: Matthews/Mark, San Diego

Challenge: Create awareness of Sony’s line of digital phones, which use code division multiple access, or CDMA, technology.

The Ads: Print and television ads pair opposites to dramatize the theme, “If only they’d talk.” In one print ad, Alice Cooper, wearing leather pants and dark eye makeup, stands next to Pat Boone, who’s got a snake coiled around him. (Evidently, they’ve talked.) Other print ads pair an elephant with a donkey on the Capitol steps, and a lumberjack with a conservationist. The TV spot consists of a montage. People in native dress appear against a backdrop of foreign flags. A balding father grimaces when his teenage daughter enters a room. An umpire argues with a ballplayer. A narrator says, “It’s small, but powerful enough to bring people together who are worlds apart.” By the end of the spot, the adversaries have reconciled.

Comment: The print ads are absurd and amusing. When the concept is translated to TV, it is only absurd. Unlike the print ads, the television spot seems to promise nothing short of world peace--an approach popular with technology companies. (Take the Oracle Super Bowl spot that opened with global mayhem and ended with peaceful Net surfing.) Sony is promising more than it can possibly deliver, risking its credibility in the process. $$