As executive creative director at McKinney in Raleigh, N.C., David Baldwin has had a hand in assorted notable projects, including endeavors that have broken new media ground, a high-profile example being last year’s “The Heist” for Audi, an all-encompassing experiential ad vehicle event that blended fiction and reality, turning prospective consumers into interactive participants.
Now on behalf of Sony’s Bravia line of liquid-crystal-display TV sets, he leads a McKinney team that tackles the DVR quandary, making a commercial that tempts viewers to pay attention, using the TiVo or an equivalent system–noted for its ad-skipping prowess–as the means to access alternative endings to the spot storyline.
“Basically we’re trying to use the TiVo experience to our advantage,” related Baldwin. “DVR users can click a button on their remote control to select an ending to watch either male or female-oriented.”
The original commercial–sans alternate endings–debuted during the 2005 Academy Awards telecast. Directed by Scott Vincent of bicoastal/international Hungry Man, “Trailer” featured a man and a woman gazing through a storefront window at amazing cinema-like images displayed on a Sony Bravia LCD TV set. Unaware of each other, the man and woman simultaneously say, “Nice picture,” at which point they finally notice one another.
Fast-forward to today and McKinney has crafted different conclusions that take us past where the initial commercial left off. DVR users can select either the “Ending for Men” or the “Ending for Women.” The female endings consist of a 1950s-era musical centered on shoes and an emotional tale about a female doctor saving a man and an orphan. The male-driven ending is either a funny clip from a sports drama or a cartoon spoof of a martial-arts movie. The endings were directed by Frank Todaro of bicoastal/international Moxie Pictures.
“We’re bringing the genders together,” quipped Baldwin, noting that the HD television set marketplace has become “an inherent battleground” between the sexes. “The guys want the giant TV set with the awesome picture while the women think it’s too big for the room and don’t want it….We’ve used our campaign to bridge that gap and more deeply brand Sony Bravia as the TV for both men and women.”
And that entertaining, engaging concept has legs, according to Kevin Berman, marketing manager for Sony Electronics. So much so that the agency and client waited until now for the other shoe to drop. “We always intended to have this second part of the campaign–with the alternate endings for DVR users,” said Berman. “But we don’t traditionally have a heavy media summer….so we decided to come back with the alternate endings now this fall when our media play is heavy.”
House Calls Via TV and Streamers: A Rundown of The Season’s Doctor Dramas
No matter your ailment, there are plenty of TV doctors waiting to treat you right now on a selection of channels and streamers.
Whether it's Noah Wyle putting on his stethoscope for the first time since "ER," Morris Chestnut graduating to head doctor, Molly Parker making her debut in scrubs or Joshua Jackson trading death for life on a luxury cruise, new American hospital dramas have something for everyone.
There's also an outsider trying to make a difference in "Berlin ER," as Haley Louise Jones plays the new boss of a struggling German hospital's emergency department. The show's doors slide open to patients Wednesday on Apple TV+.
These shows all contain the DNA of classic hospital dramas โ and this guide will help you get the TV treatment you need.
"Berlin ER"
Dr. Suzanna "Zanna" Parker has been sent to run the Krank, which is only just being held together by hardened โ and authority-resistant โ medical staff and supplies from a sex shop. The result is an unflinching drama set in an underfunded, underappreciated and understaffed emergency department, where the staff is as traumatized as the patients, but hide it much better.
From former real-life ER doc Samuel Jefferson and also starring Slavko Popadiฤ, ลafak ลengรผl, Aram Tafreshian and Samirah Breuer, the German-language show is not for the faint of heart.
Jones says she eventually got used to the blood and gore on the set.
"It's gruesome in the beginning, highly unnerving. And then at some point, it's just the most normal thing in the world," she explains. "That's flesh. That's the rest of someone's leg, you know, let's just move on and have coffee or whatever."
As it's set in the German clubbing capital, the whole city... Read More