The premise of the “More to Watch” theme was that, just as television was the most powerful storytelling device (perhaps with the tip of the hat towards the cinema), Sharp’s Aquos product line offered the most advanced televisions, providing viewers a more vivid picture. experience through its superior color, detail and sound. One of the five television ads in the campaign showed people – a mother dressing her daughter, a man cooking, an audience in a movie theater – living with their eyes closed. Finally, a woman opened her eyes in an art museum in front of the painting Batalla de Guararapes by Victor Meirelles. Then a voice-over said, “The Sharp Aquos LCD TV. Suddenly, there’s more to watch.” Some critics objected to the underlying concept. On Brandweek, Barry Janoff commented: “Taking the premise of the ad literally means to imply that people cannot see or appreciate their lives unless television is there to help them. And, furthermore, they will not really value their own lives. have them swap out their regular TVs for an Aquos. Of course, Sharp can’t tell people to get out there and enjoy life by turning off their TVs. “

The “More to See” message may have been simplistic and even illogical, but the method by which the centerpiece of the campaign was delivered was as innovative as Sharp’s LCD technology. The campaign was more than multifaceted; In many ways it was an example of interactive fiction, using the different elements (TV spots, print ads, websites, and an “alternate reality games” contest) to engage the audience and keep them engaged in the campaign for months and months. months. This approach was intended to counter the resilience that consumers had built up to 30-second commercials after years of being bombarded by them, not to mention the ability of digital video recorder owners to skip the commercials. The pioneering effort in this type of promotion was the independent film The Blair Witch Project, which generated quite a stir by dropping hints in the media that the film was a student documentary project that went horribly wrong. The curious were taken to the producer’s website, and large numbers of people began to debate among themselves whether the “found footage” of the film students was real or fake. When the low-budget film was released, it became the surprise hit of the summer of 1999, generating an impressive $ 150 million in domestic box office sales.

Sharp enlisted the services of Blair Witch producers Haxan Films to help create the mystery story around which the “More to See” contest and marketing campaign would revolve. The resulting tale was called “Legend of the Sacred Urns” and consumers were invited to solve the mystery of where an eccentric millionaire had hidden three prized urns. The three television commercials that developed the story: “The Key,” “The Pool,” and “The Tooth,” wove a “cinematic mystery,” in the words of Bill Dunlap of Shoot magazine, “set on a country estate, involving a beautiful woman, an older man in a swimming pool, and a careless driver in a Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. ” Marcus Robinson, writing for Boards Magazine, offered his own summary of the setup: “A guy, Peter Lindeman, is swimming in the pool of his great French castle, and his girlfriend is wandering down the road to meet her lover. Unfortunately, he’s massaging a toothache and had his eyes on the rearview mirror, forcing him to swerve to avoid hitting her. He ends up throwing his red sports car into the pool. “

All three ads showed the same incident from a different point of view. In “The Pool,” for example, a woman from a bedroom window saw Lindeman swimming in the pool when a car suddenly flew through the air and landed in the water. A Sharp television was then shown and viewers were directed to the campaign website, Moretosee.com, on its screen. The site provided featured audiovisual leads and blogs, allegedly written by the three characters involved in the search for the three mysterious urns. Chat rooms were also available for people to ponder the mystery together. Once viewers were on the website, they had the opportunity to learn more about LCD technology and Sharp’s Aquos line of televisions. Participants were also directed to other websites to discover clues. The commercials were directed by award-winning documentarian Errol Morris, whose credits included Gates of Heaven, The Thin Blue Line, and Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control.

The television commercials began airing in September 2004 and were shown on a variety of network and cable shows, including ABC’s Monday Night Football and CBS’s 60 Minutes. The “More to See” campaign also included print ads, run by Wieden & Kennedy’s Amsterdam office, which also tried to get people to the website. After starting in the United States, “More to See” was released to 18 other countries. In a complementary component of the campaign, Sharp opened a store in New York City, where consumers could experience the Aquos product line and where more clues were available. The campaign went on for four months, during the critical Christmas season, with bits of the mystery split over time. In the end, Ken Floss from Ohio solved the puzzle and won the grand prize, an Aquos television, and other home theater equipment.