Toshiba Space Chair

Toshiba Space Chair

Toshiba has just released a new ad whereby a living room chair is tied to a helium balloon and carried to an extraordinary 98,268 feet into space.   (OMG I wonder if it passed the old man from UP!?...)

The campaign, created by Grey London, has two executions: the below video, for the REGZA SV LCD TV Series in 2009,  Toshiba’s first model to include an LED backlight with local dimming, which they claim will “redefine the armchair viewing experience”.   

Another video will be released in 2010 for Toshiba’s Satellite T Series laptops.

I’d love to read the brief for this campaign – big props to Grey for literally shooting for space – doesn’t get much bigger than that.

According to Katy Ball (who wrote the Toshiba Social Media News Release), th ad was "inspired by a sub culture of scientists and artists who send objects to the edge of space using weather balloons. Grey London collaborated with a number of talented individuals, including British artist Simon Faithfull, to re-create the concept of launching a generic chair into space, and by using their own HD cameras, to demonstrate how Toshiba technology can take something ordinary and make it extraordinary".

The video ends with the chair getting its ass kicked by the atmosphere and the strap line, "armchair viewing, redefined".  Indeed!

Here's "The Making Of..." Video:

A few facts about the shoot (from Toshiba)

• The shots were taken at a staggering 98,268 feet above the earth using Toshiba’s own cameras
• To reach the altitude required and to conform with Federal Aviation Administration regulations, the weight of the rig had to be carefully managed to a weight of no more than four pounds
• Tied to the rig was a specially created full-sized model chair made of biodegradable balsa wood – the chair was made by a company called Artem and cost about £2,500
• Launch coordinates of the rig were - 119 degrees, 14 minutes by 40 degrees, 48 minute (12 miles North-East of the town of Gerlach, Nevada)
• The quality of the footage from the Toshiba IK-HR1S cameras was: 1920x1080 pixel count; 1080i @ 50hz; 100 Mbps
• The temperature dropped to minus 90 degrees when the chair reached 52,037 feet
• The chair took 83 minutes to reach an altitude of 98,268 feet where it broke and took just 24 minutes to fall back down to earth with the rig.

Thanks Bean, for pointing this out!