Miami gets all lathered up

The new advert, "Foam City", promotes Sony's Handycam, Cyber-shot and α, its new digital camera brand.

For the ad, the producers transformed downtown Miami into a giant bubblebath, filling whole streets with foam and inviting residents to frolic in it and take pictures.

"Foam City" was created by ad agency Fallon London, which made "Balls", "Paint" and "Play-Doh" for Sony's Bravia TV brand, and directed by Simon Ratigan, who shot 16 hours of film to create a 90-second commercial.

The world's largest foam machine was built especially for the advert, which pumped 460m litres of foam onto city streets.

Some 200 locals used Sony Cyber-shot digital stills cameras, Handycam camcorders and α digital SLR cameras and their images were uploaded onto an online database.

After previous shoots for "Balls" found their way onto the internet, Sony and Fallon realised the publicity benefits of seeding images from their adverts onto the web.

Sony's new 60-second advert launches in Europe today, while a 90-second advert will appear on British TV screens on May 1.

The foam theme will feature across all digital imaging, advertising and marketing activity, with the advert for α about the challenge of capturing the perfect bubble.

"We wanted this to be a magical event where people would be able to have a truly unique photographic experience, where they could actually take images like no other," said Mikah Martin-Cruz, the general manager, marketing communications, Sony UK.