Just a few issues ago, my subject was an ad for the Sony Cyber-shot digital camera (The Makeover Maven, July). This time it’s an ad for the Sony Vaio T-300 Series notebook computer.
To readers who may think I’m picking on Sony by doing two makeovers of its ads in less than a year, don’t worry about Sony. It would be about as troubling to the company (if anyone there knew) as a fruit fly buzzing around the ears of a dinosaur.
I am singling this ad out for analysis because it provides such a good example of the importance of not pushing aside news, benefits and clarity in an effort to be amusing.
The ad photos may not be very clear due to their reduced size. But here’s what you should be able to see: In Sony’s ad, the top half of the page is taken up with a dramatic photograph: A white car is stranded on a dark and lonely road. In the foreground, we see just the hands of a guy using a notebook computer. Behind the car, arms folded, his girlfriend waits disgustedly.
So what the heck is going on? Pale white capital letters at the top of the photo provide clues:
E-Mapfinder.com
E-Couplescounseling.com
Get it? He’s lost and is using his notebook to try to figure out where they are and how to get where they’re going; she’s mad as hell at him because he’d insisted he knew the way. (And refused to ask anybody?)
Somewhere between the picture and the body copy is a pale headline,
Network
