Sony Bravia's "Splatter Paint" Ad Is one of the Most Expensive of ALL TIME! $2mil for 70 Seconds, Relocated 132 Scottish Families, took 4 Days to Clean!

One can never experience an ad in a vacuum. But Sony's "Paint" surely bears a particularly crushing contextual weight, following as it did the (IMHO) spectacular, affecting, all-round winner "Balls." Add a lead-up PR campaign by Sony that generated audience expectation, a known and respected director, and the industry's natural inclination to hate things, and "Paint" was practically destined to be a let-down for ad critics.



But let's step back and examine the context and the object for a minute. The PR campaign was a noteworthy and laudable thing in its own right. The advertiser and the agency should get points for creating public awareness and excitement online about the making of a commercial, and those points can be added to the ones scored for creating the daring "Balls" and its attendant cultural splash in the first place. In the case of "Paint," Sony and Fallon made sure you knew roughly what you were getting going in, which in itself was a smart move, and the execution delivered on the promise.



"Balls" put Bravia on the map and "Paint" does everything a commercial, circa 2006 should do to keep it there.



This is to say nothing of those few seconds of clown footage, which in themselves made "Paint" an easy pick o' the week.