Apparently, Trevor Beattie thinks the 30-second TV ad is ‘bullshit’ because we absorb information much faster than that. He says five seconds is the optimum length of message/consumption:
“30 second [TV ads] are ridiculously long, it is a lifetime,” he said. “People know within two seconds if they like something. The absorption of information is so fast these days it is amazing.”
Now, the slightly cynical part of me would suggest that Trevor (speaking at some conference) was looking for a headline-grabbing remark. I’m not saying he doesn’t think a 5-second communication is a good idea, but to say that thirty seconds is bullshit might be overstating the case somewhat.
To me it’s like the adage that we don’t read these days, when the truth is many of us read thousands of words on the internet every day. Can we cope with thirty seconds? Yes. Is five seconds going to work for all the things we want to say? No.
Having said that, I have to confess that I rarely watch longer things through to the end and if a clip says it’s going to be 2 1/2 minutes my heart sinks a little. But that depends what mode I’m in. I’ll gladly read a book for hours, but if I’m in ‘pissing around on the internet’ mode I’ll most likely feel a more pressing impatience. However, I can usually cope with 30 seconds.
I think that’s what behind this might be the standard of ads these days. It’s now so unlikely that a 30-second ad will be a rewarding use of your time that none of us is now inclined to choose that way of spending half a minute. Name a 30-second ad you’ve seen in the last year that you’d go out of your way to watch again. There might be five, but that means the odds are ridiculously low.
So what really matters may not be the timelength so much as what you choose to fill it with. As the big voice in Field Of Dreams almost said, ‘If you build it well, they will come’.
Comments 16
Trevor’s solution kind of accepts the problem rather than solves it, doesn’t it?
I am reading Dan Pink’s book- To Sell is Human and in one chapter he talks about Maurice Saatchi and what he calls ‘one word equity’.
“When anyone utters that word they think of you and when anyone thinks of you they utter that word.”
“Attention spans aren’t merely shrinking, he says, they’re nearly disappearing. And the only way to be heard is to push brevity to its breaking point.”
What does that mean for the future, if we all have deteriorating attention spans? Or as you allude to, is it over hyped?
We do seem to be dumbing down don’t we?
Posted 19 Mar 2013 at 9:20 am ¶I was reading Kate Stanners say the exact opposite a few weeks ago.
Perhaps they are both right and maybe there isn’t one universal truth for the whole industry.
Could that be possible?
Posted 19 Mar 2013 at 9:43 am ¶I agree about the headline-grabbing soundbite. There are lots of commentators in our business who haven’t made anything good for years, sometimes decades, who claim to be experts on how to do stand-out creative work.
The first time I had sex, the first 2 seconds were average at best, but I stuck at it and still enjoy it to this very day.
Posted 19 Mar 2013 at 11:19 am ¶Well, none of TBWA’s John Smith’s ads would have worked in 5 seconds.
Posted 19 Mar 2013 at 12:16 pm ¶Balls would have been shit in 5 seconds. Gorilla wouldnt have made any sense in 5 seconds, ditto Guiness surfer etc etc etc…
I think you’re exactly right.
There’s defo a ‘pressing impatience’ when we’re on the internet. If you look at something like YouTube, where you can skip an ad after 5 seconds, then what Trevor says makes sense. Or at least make an ad that hooks you in 5.
But when it comes to watching TV a load of 5 second ads would be bloody annoying
Posted 19 Mar 2013 at 12:25 pm ¶if you build it HE will come.
Posted 19 Mar 2013 at 1:06 pm ¶Hey, pedantic, did you not read the sentence before it? It contains the word ‘almost’, suggesting my quote would not be exact.
Sheesh…
Posted 19 Mar 2013 at 2:23 pm ¶I think he’s kind of missing the point. True people are more likely to click and flit about online like the ADHD riddled monkeys we are. But only until they find something they want to stick with. So the solution is – you can make something that works in the 5 seconds it takes for people to get bored, or you can make something people want to stick with.
Posted 19 Mar 2013 at 2:38 pm ¶YouTube prerolls are about 5 seconds long before you skip.
Perhaps Mr Beattie sees an opportunity.
Posted 19 Mar 2013 at 2:44 pm ¶5″ ads now there is a challenge. Certain fast food chains food porn is 12″. It would be a fun for a consumer of a 3 minute ad break consisting of 36 shit adverts.
Posted 19 Mar 2013 at 3:23 pm ¶i went to a talk with dave droga 7 years ago when he said the same thing.
30 seconds is dead blahdy blah.
cut to droga 5′s latest work for coke zero…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZjsydBB-Kc
anonymouse is right.
Posted 19 Mar 2013 at 3:39 pm ¶re quote, oh yeah. sorry my attention span is a little beattie on the short side.
Posted 19 Mar 2013 at 3:48 pm ¶angyouverymuch
Doesn’t Vine (the new Twitter ad/video thingy) work on a 6 seconds or less time-length?
Maybe Trev’s just trying to prove he’s down with the kids so when all the clients jump from shitty facebook apps to shitty Twitter ads he can say ‘I told you so.’
He’s probably not wrong if it’s client cash he’s after.
Posted 19 Mar 2013 at 3:54 pm ¶I always know within a few seconds what I think of Trevor’s tv efforts
Posted 20 Mar 2013 at 11:59 am ¶The five second thing is bollocks. Five seconds came about from the amount of time we’re forced to wait before we can shut down a YouTube ad.
And why do we click off YouTube ads?
Because we’ve known a time when we could watch any clip without having to watch an ad first. Now I have to endure a five second ad for the new Nissan Micra just to watch a three second clip of some guy getting whacked in the face with a football.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XuEGHHoZGM
And if you think you can do better in five seconds than this campaign did in ten…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEZfoPfbgUk
…then you’re an advertising God and frankly don’t know why you’re wasting your time here. You could have written twenty, five-second spots in the time it took to read this.
Posted 20 Mar 2013 at 3:51 pm ¶What a load of crap. Perhaps he was just trying to be contentious. No change there, then.
Posted 21 Mar 2013 at 3:32 pm ¶Post a Comment