Let’s say you’re on the marketing team at Philips, the electronics manufacturer. Your company is releasing the first ever cinema proportion (21:9) TV. It would be pretty easy to design a magazine ad or billboard with arrows and measurements in inches vs. a regular widescreen (16:9) TV and some catchy phrase like “see what you’ve been missing”.
Or, you can do what Philips did. They hired Adam Berg to make a short film called Carousel.
The film is only 2:19 in length (get it? 2:19 / 21:9) but after watching it, I feel like I just sat through the best part of a great action movie. Which is interesting, because technically, there is no action. Berg captures a single still scene in an intense firefight between cops and the bad guys, dressed up as clowns. The characters never move, but the camera does, floating through the street, in between bullets, and out of windows, moving through a single, frozen, intricately staged moment.
When watching the film online, Philips even simulated what the TV will look like hanging on your wall, including their popular AMBILIGHT technology.
Kudos to Philips and Adam Berg for making the ad that wasn’t easy and has the potential to be viral.
You can watch the embedded video below but I’m sure Philips and Adam would prefer you watch the full video on the Philips website here.
All of a sudden, my TV looks rather unremarkable.
[UPDATE: Initially the video wasn't on YouTube. Now it has over 173,000 views on YouTube and likely many more on the Philips HD site. Viral achieved.]
