The challenge

How to navigate an uncertain future

Due to Covid-19, The International Broadcast Convention (IBC), the biggest industry event of the year for media companies, broadcasters and content creators, was cancelled. Within four weeks we needed to develop an event and campaign idea, messaging framework, brand identity and campaign assets, for Sony's own on-line showcase.

But this was a complicated story. We had a diverse array of products and solutions to sell across a range of disparate customer types. Everything from a new range affordable cinema quality cameras for one person videographers, to virtual workflow solutions for the world's biggest global broadcasters. And of course, many in the industry had been side swiped by COVID and felt stunned and rudderless. They needed someone to excite them about the future, not just help them through the present.

The insight

Adapt and thrive

The industry didn't just need to change the way they did things to survive COVID, they needed to totally rethink how they did things to thrive in the future. The industry needed a double shot of hope and optimism, and to feel empowered.

The idea

Rewrite the future

Staying true to our collaborative ethos, we worked with strategic guru Paul Shearman and Creative Director Steve Stretton to produce the campaign concept 'Rewrite the future'. The idea was developed to position Sony as an optimistic forward looking partner who could help its customers embrace change and re-engineer their businesses for new opportunities and a new future. We wanted the campaign to make customers feel that they could confidently respond to COVID and feel in control of it, rather than be buffeted by it, and merely 'survive’.

Cursor device

Using the campaign line as inspiration, we created a graphic 'cursor' and suite of assets built from it, that we could use in multiple ways to graphically 'rewrite' the future. The latter was a crucial part of the solution. The cursor could help us edit the future, highlight the need for change and delete the things we no longer need. The graphic language that the cursor inspired was strong, confident and contemporary and enabled us to hand over assets that would create a highly integrated and promptly recognisable campaign across multiple media channels.

An evolved identity

To give the campaign greater standout, we built a colour palette that used just two existing Sony colours; a rarely used yellow that conveyed confidence and optimism, and an aubergine. Subtle halftone imagery was layered with full colour imagery to convey the idea of the past and the future.