5 Second TV Commercials

By idfive \ October 5, 2006

People are watching less and less TV. We all know that the TV industry is struggling big time. And networks are responding by airing more interesting material. I am having a hard time keeping my TV viewing hours down this season.

Also, commercials are down by 20%. So, more content and less interruptions for consumers – and a heftier price tag for advertisers since networks are reducing supply.

Commercials are getting better, too. They are better produced and more entertaining.

As a result, ads are costing more to produce (due to higher production value) and air (due to reduced supply). So much so, that networks are testing some nontraditional advertising options that reduce airing costs. For example, Cadillac and AOL have been running 5 second “blink” ads. The most common commercial length is 30 seconds, but other popular ad lengths are 15 and 60 seconds.

Creating significantly shorter ads is very challenging. Five seconds is a not a lot of time to convey a brand, message and a call to action.

Sounds like producing ads for the web. Only designing ads for the web is harder because the ad shares the viewing real estate with god-only-knows-what-else.

Traditional advertisers should take a long hard look at some of the techniques that we are using to capture people’s attention.