• by Aaron Baar , April 4, 2017

Not content to just fill a space with music, Sonos seems to be looking for a way to really “tie the room together, man.”

In a new spot promoting its Playbase component (which sits underneath a television set to amplify the set’s sound, and connects with other Sonos components via wireless networks), the brand has taken a scene from the cult hit film, “The Big Lebowski” (which contains some infamous lines about a rug tying the room together). 

“The Coen Brothers use music in such an extraordinary way, it’s part of why their films are so iconic and enduring,” Dmitri Siegel, global brand vice president for Sonos, tells Marketing Daily. “Our customers love music and movies, so they naturally love when the two come together." 

The new commercial features the well-known “Gutterballs” dream sequence from the movie, in which the main characters (played by Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore) dance. At first, the characters are shown dancing without music and only background noise, before onscreen text declares: “What’s on your TV is only as good as what your TV is on.” The soundtrack, “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In),” by Kenny Rogers and First Edition, comes in to finish the scene, with a television on a Playbase.

“Playbase really ties the room together because it’s a simple, beautiful object that replaces all those boxy components and messy wires that clog up your living room,” Siegel says. 

The brand launched a campaign during the Grammy awards in February that — rather than encouraging people to fill their homes with music — addressed the problems that can come with an absence of music, specifically, increased isolation and a lack of human connection. “Wake up the silent home,” the campaign encouraged. 

“Everything we do is focused on transforming the home through listening,” Siegel says. “Our previous two ad campaigns highlighted the obstacles that get in the way of that … With this launch, we are focusing on how to connect sound for screen into the overall home sound system.”