TV ads not on TV

Advertising HD TVs in a different way. From the comments: Official Aurea site here.

Go take a look at the site. It takes an amazingly long time to load and then... what? Ok, its a reveal site but come on. The only thing you can do is send them your email address. No mention of anything product related; it could be a toaster, a TV, a new sitcom, who knows?

From Lost Remote:

"Phillips Electronics has a new high-end HDTV flat screen line called Aurea it has launched in Europe. They’re not bothering much with TV ads, however. They’re spending their ad bucks by producing five minute, artsy films and then showing the films on the Aurea at fashion and jewelry stores in Europe."

From the NYT:

"The five-minute film is actually an advertisement for a new television from Philips Electronics, a high-end flat-screen model called Aurea. The film, a spy story shot in Shanghai, will be shown in the Paris boutiques of the fashion label Lanvin and the jeweler Lorenz Bäumer — on Aurea televisions, of course.

The decision to produce a short film with an art-house director like Mr. Wong shows how brands are trying to break away from their reliance on 30-second television spots, which some marketers fear have lost their effectiveness. Now, even televisions are being marketed without recourse to television.

“The idea is to be more exclusive, to be very different from your traditional kind of advertising,” said Sandrine Huijgen, marketing director for consumer electronics at Philips. “We don’t see Dior advertising a lot on television.”