DISQUS

Brent Applegate · 2 years ago

I read this in the Union-Tribune as well...

I think it is super creative! You can avoid a banner ad with your eyes, but you can't realy turn off your ears! Neat use of people's increasingly fragmented attention span. And further, ads are all about getting you to do something without thinking about it. Imagine the subliminal power of a Starbucks billboard showing a velvety smooth latte.

I love the creativity of making 2 seconds a valuable advertising commodity!

Michael Stelzner · 2 years ago

Hey Brent - Thanks for your comments. I think on a hot day, an add for Cold Stone Ice Cream might grab me. - Mike

Tom Chandler · 2 years ago

It's a good illustration about the ongoing failure of standard interrupt marketing techniques -- and why so many companies are now looking for ways to engage with customers instead.

If the populace's attention span has collectively fallen to the point that even a 15-second spot is too long, then why are blogs such a fast-growing marketing channel?

Brands that have little to offer (in terms of alignment with a customer's passions or even differentiated benefits) are already suffering at the hands of those who do, and no amount of two-second radio spots will change that.

Michael Stelzner · 2 years ago

Hey Tom;

Great point!

This is why I say the message must be valuable.

Had the ad said "Egg salad on sale at Jack's Deli" I do not think it would have had the same impact.

Only a recognized brand could get away with this.

Mike

Jonathan Kantor · 2 years ago

Definitely fragmented consumers. Time has become a valuable commodity and patience is a virtue that many desire but few are willing to invest.

To address Tom's point, blogs ARE an example of the shortening attention span today. When have you ever seen a blog post that is longer than a few paragraphs? If a blogger were to publish a 1000 word post every day, they would probably lose their core audience pretty quickly.

Jonathan

Michael Stelzner · 2 years ago

Hey Jonathan;

I would agree.

However, the post I wrote over at Copyblogger.com was 1000 words and it got the most response (50 + comments) I have seen in such as short period of time.

Of course we don't pull stuff like that every day.

Mike

Jonathan Kantor · 2 years ago

Mike,

I think the number of responses to that blog post was due more to the controversial nature of the subject, and not its size.

Jonathan

Tom Chandler · 2 years ago

I think the delayed gratification post is a good example of the bandwidth of an engaged audience.

My thinking is simply this; engage with people their around passions and values (publish a novel marketing technique in a community of passionate marketers), and the reader's bandwidth expands.

Try to "grab" their attention for a short time by startling them (with ultimately hollow content) and their bandwidth is exceptionally narrrow.

Not much to say that engages with a customer? You're left to zapping them with two-second radio spots.

Business Blogger · 2 years ago

It's getting harder and harder to get the attention of customers. Consumers are becoming more and more intolerant of in your face advertising. Standard advertising works but creative advertising works better.

Whitney · 2 years ago

Wouldn't this be a case of fragmented consumers? Effective advertising for a specific audience, not-nearly-so-effective for the public at large? Just-the-facts-ma'am ads are all some audiences need ("CSI: NY...Next!" or "Numbers...This Friday 10 p.m."). Others need more.

Are those 2-second ads so much ads as they are the TV equivalent of Outlook reminders? Could they really convince a viewer to watch CSI for the first time? Or do they mainly serve to remind existing viewers not to, say, switch over to Grey's Anatomy on the other network? (Not that the majority of CSI viewers need to be reminded...)

It's interesting that you wrote this when you did. About the same time, Andrea Learned over at the Huffington Post wrote the following in an article about conceptual age marketing:

"...as consumers, we are looking for more of that which is above, beyond and around those straight, linear facts to help us make purchase decisions. We still need the logic, certainly, but with so many choices we are now freed up to prioritize the non-rational, more emotional side of things. For instance, since all cars in a given price range have the same basic features, there need to be a few more emotional, "other" reasons that sway a buyer in the direction of one brand over another. That might be a storyline in an ad campaign, the way the salesperson treats the buyer or what friends have previously said about the car, for example."

You can read the whole post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-learned/ma....

John Doe · 2 years ago

Instead of clever marketing, I must say it's annoying. In Malaysia, we had to seen them everyday, from the news, dramas and in almost all forms of entertainment you can find here. I don't listen radio much so I don't really notice any of 2-seconds advertisement - yet. Am I surprised with those ads? No. I'm annoyed and I doubt people will like it.

Nek Strebor · 1 year ago

There was an advertiser here that did this very effectively. What was neat was that they used little puns and wordplay and kept having new ones. After some weeks of hearing these nano-ads, then I started hearing some longer spots for the company. By that time, somehow the longer spots were less annoying of an interruption.

I don't think peoples' attention spans have diminshed. I think we just have a lower tolerance for ads that interrupt the programming.

Hotel California · 1 year ago

Some ads trick are very cleaver, the ones that based on psychological person side.
And it's very annoying when ads interrupt live sport translation.

keyaudioads · 1 year ago

Hi Michael
Its very true what you say, I think I remember reading something similar with TV, a split second image of a beer can or soft drink bottle, is enough to get people to get up a walk to the fridge, anyway would you believe we run 5-10 second ads, not on the radio or tv, but on a network of publishers web pages. Some frown on the idea, some like it. We are aware of the trills and spills of such advertising methods. Perhaps some day you might hear one of our clients ads, it would be very interesting to read your views...