• by P.J. Bednarski  @pjbtweet, September 28, 2018

Here’s something you don’t see every day: a bus commuter not plugged into her smartphone, watching videos or scrolling through Instagram.

A new commercial creates that scenario. It is part of a joint campaign by Amazon and Bose that debuted on the ESPN “Monday Night Football”  telecast Sept. 24 and will pop up again on major networks through Oct. 21.

Both companies worked on the creative, but Amazon designed the ad.

At some earlier time -- say 20 years ago -- a commuter just taking in the passing scene wouldn’t have seemed odd at all. In this 60-second spot, though, gazing gets a digital update.

The passenger is wearing her new Bose QC35 II noise-canceling headphones enabled with Amazon’s Alexa, who provides information based on the dramas developing on the other side of that bus window. Everybody else on the bus is still head-down deep into their smartphones.

But the woman with headphones sees an apartment dweller chase a live chicken down the street; a group of men and women pushing their stalled minivan; parade wranglers trying to manage a giant inflatable sloth on a side street.

That’s when she says, “Alexa, tell me a sloth fact.” Alexa responds, “Sloths grow up to be about 27 inches in size.”

Finally, she and her headphones come across a movie crew filming a stunt motorcyclist chase as he flies into a truckload of bananas. She tells Alexa to remind her to put bananas on her shopping list.

Throughout, this tableau is  accompanied by Emilie Mover’s lilting soft jazz “Walking Through” -- a choice Alexa made when the woman asks her to play “morning music.”

The point is made: Good headphones and Alexa services are a nice combination.

The commercial, obviously, does not mention that a consumer can get the headphones packed with Google Assistant instead.

There’s an avalanche of Alexa-aided items suddenly on the market, including an Alexa set from headphone makers like Sony. As the holiday shopping season draws near, the campaign could be a springboard for Bose sales.