Sony Serves Up 3D Coverage At Wimbledon
Sony has invested a lot of corporate credibility and cold hard cash in 3D, which it expects to be a major revenue-generator for a number of its consumer and professional businesses. So it’s interesting to note how much effort the company is putting into promoting 3D around this year’s Wimbledon.
At the heart of its strategy, Sony is working with partners to provide live 3D coverage of the prestigious lawn tennis championships for the in-home market. In a nutshell, Sony is providing the equipment, CAN Communicate is producing the coverage and Visions is providing state-of-the-art OB technical facilities. Permission was granted by event rights holder The All England Lawn Tennis Club and the resultant 3D images (of the Semi-Finals and Finals) will be available for general consumption via the BBC’s HD Channel.
In an effort to promote this 3D coverage, Sony has also unveiled a Wimbledon-themed online commercial which uses the same creative idea as a 2006 TV ad for Sony Bravia (delivered by Fallon), in which thousands of different coloured balls bounced joyously through San Francisco.
The new ad, created by digital agency Crayon, uses the same idea. But this time the balls are tennis balls, and they are bouncing through the leafy suburbs of Wimbledon, SW19. There’s also a range of other activities across traditional media, digital and experiential. This includes an online competition in which punters can collect virtual tennis balls to win prizes such as Wimbledon tickets and Sony products.
Commenting on the campaign, Matt Coombe, Sony UK’s general manager of brand marketing, said: "This is a great creative idea that maximises nostalgia around a previous Sony campaign, and explodes the idea digitally without having to support it with TV. We’re really excited about it."
