Rabbits
On location for the new BRAVIA LCD TV advert
Rabbits to the left of me, rabbits to the right, here I am – stuck in the middle of New York’s Foley Square, along with several highly excitable journalists of various nationalities. So, what’s lured us to the Big Apple? Well, we’re here to watch a TV advert being made. But not just any TV advert. This is the third in the award-winning Sony BRAVIA Colour Like No Other campaign.
First they flood the streets of San Francisco with 250,000 bouncing balls, then they blast blocks of flats in Glasgow with multi-coloured paint. And now this, Rabbit Central. I mean, what’s wrong with these people? Anyone would think they had nothing better to do all day than think up brilliant new ways of pushing the creative boundaries of television advertising.
Fallon – the advertising agency behind all this mischief – do just that, hitting the bull’s eye with viewers and earning awards by the bucket load. Both previous ads, Balls and Paint, have been copied and spoofed by others desperate for some of this creativity to rub off on their own brands – the ultimate compliment for any purveyor of televisual brand messaging.
In a bizarre scene, commuters and tourists walk by relatively unhindered, as dozens of technicians and animators quietly go about the business of manoeuvring 189 2ft-tall Play-Doh rabbits around the square. Watching the ‘stop-start, stop-start’ process of animation, it’s hard to imagine that the result is something akin to a roller-disco version of Watership Down, topped off with a 40ft Play-Doh wave crashing through the square. Oh, and right smack bang in the middle of it all is a giant 30ft-high orange rabbit, called Steve (probably).
Written and directed by Fallon creative director Juan Cabral (also responsible for Balls and Paint) and shot by Frank Budgen (of the Guinness Snails advert fame), the Play-Doh ad is billed as the most ambitious piece of stop-motion animation ever undertaken, taking three weeks to shoot, employing 40 animators and using 2.5 tonnes of modelling clay.
Missed it on the telly? Go to www.colourlikenoother.com to watch the ad in full.
Want to win one of the actual rabbits used in the production? Click here
Story by Tim Southwell