According to Marketing Daily, the number of 15-second television commercials has jumped more than 70% over the past five years as advertisers slowly migrate from traditional 30-second spots.
Naturally, ads should get shorter given the waning attention span of modern audiences. For instance, it is well documented that if someone browsing the internet finds a website that does not load within the span of just a few seconds, most users will leave the site.
If people won’t wait a few seconds for information they actually requested, it says a lot about the difficulty of advertising information that was not requested, and about keeping viewers engaged for a period of time longer than just a few moments.
How can advertisers still deliver value in 15 or 30 seconds to an audience that demands instant gratification?
One related campaign that has been around for years is Get a Load of Milk from the Dairy Farmers of Canada. They are perhaps most commonly remembered as those ultra-short clips before the trailers at the movie theatre, though they also hold a notable presence on television.
As you likely recall (see below otherwise), the ads are but six seconds in length. The spots are, very clearly, youth-oriented. The format is unusual, and how they are able to obtain this media buy I do not know. What is known is this: the kids that the Dairy Farmers are trying to reach typically have the shortest attention spans of all.
The campaign aligns the message to the audience, and consequently, has been effective enough to have been on the air for years. On a personal note, I have always been partial to the spots, but that may just be my love for conciseness and 2% milk talking.
Am I the only person who feels that 15 second, or even 6 second commercials, like this “get a load of milk” one, are just annoying? I doubt that ultimately anyone is drinking more milk because of them.
Definitely, but you’re not their target demo