McCann produces a new beauty for Sony – but will it persuade people to buy more Bravia TV sets?

Here’s a very nice new ad from McCann London for Sony Bravia TVs, even if does offer more than a nod to the Fallon epics of yesteryear, most notably ‘Balls.’

And what’s not to like? Eight million petals floating over a Costa Rican volcano to show that you get eight million pixels on your screen – better than the others it seems.

But I read the other day that Sony’s TV business has once again slipped into loss, which it’s been doing for years.

Now that might have nothing at all to do with the advertising, more with pricing and distribution and Sony’s cost base. But if the TVs really are that good – and we’ve got one, which seems pretty good, among all the others that litter the house – shouldn’t they try something a bit more direct?

I had lunch with John Salmon the other day (John was creative director of CDP when it was turning out some of the best advertising the world has ever seen). And John said he could never figure out why agency people fought against the notion that what they were doing was trying to change people’s minds so their clients could sell more stuff.

Maybe that’s Sony’s problem. It needs to change people’s minds about what Sony stands for – which this very nice film doesn’t attempt to do. And, most of all, sell more stuff.