Have you noticed the shrinking duration of ad films? If you are a mainstream advertising creative professional, you most likely complain about it too. But a session I attended by Anisha Motwani, author of Storm The Norms, at an extraordinary event called Bhutan Brand Retreat, last month made me think of something else as well. It’s not just the ideal duration that has changed, the very structure of story-telling for brands has.
The standard duration of an ad on TV was 30 seconds. I don’t know how people arrived at that as the optimum length for a television commercial but that was the length of time we deemed acceptable. To interrupt viewers, hooked on to the twists and turns of their chosen show, to sit through our commercials. Those were the days when every second on mass media channels cost a lot. Creative doyens in advertising consultancies across the world could convey a brand message to a distracted desired TG (targeted group), compelling them into thought and action in favour of a brand. That they could accomplish this within 30 seconds is what added to their claim of being sheer geniuses.
For the audience however, a majority of these ads were a much needed break to take bio breaks or stir a pot in the kitchen. You see, people were always skipping ads. But back then, the ads still caught them – if not directly then in the backdrop. That’s how ads managed to drive brand salience. One might say they were simpler times. They were. For marketers. Not for the public. For people, times have gotten simpler today. With a neat little ‘skip ad’ button or ‘go ad free’ option,
Marketers no longer have viewers captive or passive even for 30 secs. But all is not lost. Thank goodness for base level curiosity in humans. As per research by social media giants, it only lasts for about 15 secs. Especially when they know that the content is possibly an ad.
What does this mean for marketers?
Advertising and brand building has moved from being about impressing a captive but distracted audience to a wildly free and inattentive one. The requirement from us advertising ‘geniuses’ is quite the opposite of what we were genius at.
- There is no time for emotional drivel, insecurity-mongering or clever, beautiful lies – we need to scout for whatever our brand can authentically claim – if not in our product, then in our story and our stand – to be worth our audience’s attention.
- No time for story arcs – My colleagues at legacy ad consultancies have known of and resisted the 15 second mandate from their clients for a while now. Most people grudgingly give it a try and others simply continue to make expensive long format “brand videos” when they manage to somehow get the client to agree to it. As is the spirit of this column, let’s try to stop resisting and start adapting. Anisha in her session suggested we analyse the structure of popular gen Z created reels. We suddenly see that an entirely new grammar has emerged.
- Beginning with a ‘spoiler’ – the best second of the video is often placed at the start of the video. It’s best not to rely on holding viewer attention for the entire 15 seconds. No time to indulge in teasers and grand reveals. If all you get is a fraction of a second of attention, the brand should ideally be what they see. Gone are the times of ad films which made us say, “wow! I would never have guessed this ad was for this brand”.
- Visual hooks are everything – That eye-catching visual element that grabs their attention and compels them to keep watching is called a visual hook. Our story ideation needs to focus on devising these more than on the premise, plot and protagonists.
We need to smash every rule there ever was and invent a new way of sending out a brand message. We don’t even need to invent it. We simply need to observe countless reels and the engagement they receive and device ways of applying that to brand messaging content.
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