Has anyone stopped to consider why we’re all making six second ads?
As YouTube, Snapchat and Facebook push forward with shorter and shorter ads, Y&R ANZ’s Henry Innis wonders if ‘snackable’ truly is the way forward.
I must ask — does anyone seriously think six second ads are a good reflection on the advertising industry?
When TV networks announced that they were going to introduce six second ads, it marked a change in the media world. For once, TV networks were explicitly following the lead of Google. No longer was big tech trying to mimic TV. TV was now mimicking big tech to compete for ad dollars.
It follows a theme in ads — the shorter, the better. You hear this all the time. We went from content and native advertising to ‘snackable’ content.
Brilliant, Very true
There’s another aspect at play here as well from the big tech players: Shorter ads mean more inventory.
And more inventory means more (bad) ads.
If you talk to those tech companies it’s all about a better user experience, especially on mobile devices.
Users can stomach 6 seconds (and pay attention) but any longer and they either skip or switch websites.
Say’s a lot about peoples attention spans too! Great article Henry!
Agreed. Any creative directors out there bowing to the snackable ad movement need to be fired immediately. Be a real creative or leave advertising. Simple.
Hasn’t this been written about before mumbrella?
https://mumbrella.com.au/wouldnt-lead-video-strategy-facebook-ads-463250
Henry, great article. It’s something I’ve been trying to push back on for a while as a producer so really glad there are those keeping good creative alive outside of the spreadsheet.
Quite the opposite – far easier to write a novel (:30 ad) than a short story (bumper, :06 or less) . lazy? yeah – leaning on 75 years of an arbitrary time limit feels right lazy. The consumer truth is the time spent on different channels has different impact; therefore different ad lengths for different channels is what a true marketer aspires to. remember, all media is art, short story or novel. Love it when television-based ads take the artistic moral high-ground. As Ogilvy said, don’t tell me you liked the ad, tell me you bought the product.
Hey hemingway — I’ll buy that when someone shows me the sales data behind banner ads vs. TV, or when you can show me how 6 second ads influence brands.
Agree on arbitrary time limit. Pretty interesting that yesterday the Samsung Apple ad was #1 trending item on YouTube, and it was a minute long.
FWIW I’m no fan of TV by default (am a digital strategist by background) but I’m also not a fan of crappy, rubbish inventory making even worse ads just to improve some ‘engagement’ metrics.
No need to dump on something just because it won’t win you an award. The end goal should always be delivering effectiveness for your client.
That can be a 90 second creative, or a 6 second bumper. If it satisfies a business objective then you’ve done your job well.
Did anyone see the short Compare the Market ads being run a little while ago? I found them to be too fast, but they definitely got me thinking about the brand. First 6 second ads I’ve seen on TV but perhaps a glimpse into the future?
Looking at #Breaking2 by Nike. A lot of people around the world (some in the middle of the night) watched a bunch of men run around a track for 2 hours.
As long as it is interesting, people will watch.
Same goes for reading. You don’t see Penguin introducing 6 second books.
https://www.creativereview.co.uk/penguin-launches-little-black-classics-series/
It’s a nice sentiment, but every creative agency goes out with intent to make a wonderful ad, believes, sincerely at time of dispatch that they’ve made a wonderful ad, and then gets upset when the digital report comes in that completion rate for their 30″ is 5%. And then they posit that it’s Facebook fault. “Is my ad not as compelling as I thought it was? No! It’s the children who are wrong.”
We should all aim to get an Old Spice in our CV, but they’re memorable because they’re so exceptional. On the off chance most of our 30’s don’t end up being the exceptional few, at least the 6″ cutdown is in the armory to get the message out.
Most “30 ads that are put on Facebook were never meant for Facebook. Most creative agencies are crap at making content for Facebook. I don’t think it’s an either or sentiment…
True for TV, but I do appreciate a quickie pre-roll on digital video. That is a time limit I’m happy to sit through and engage with.
Agree that ‘snackable content’ is just a marketer’s word, but what about their role in refreshing memory structures, given they’re generally cheaper to produce and run?
Smartest comment here.
Henry’s piece is fallacious at best. His end-point is engagement, which is all well and good if you’re an engagementer. But let’s parse out one of his ‘better’ ads – Volvo’s Epic Split.
According to this article, it resulted in a 31% increase in sales.
http://www.asiaone.com/showbiz.....ucks-volvo
But according to this one, that uptick was already trending – as well as other factors being in play
https://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/12/18/the-van-damme-dividend-volvo-truck-sales-rise-31/
This one claims it earned ‘$170 million’ in revenue, although it doesn’t specify how;
http://uproxx.com/tv/turns-jea.....ey-splits/
But perhaps the most telling is this one conducted by Volvo themselves;
https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/van-damme-spot-least-effective-volvo-ad/1288088
To be sure, this was a superb piece of creative that I would love to have been involved with.
But path-to-purchase is hard metrics, the rest are all soft. And I see no basis within this piece for any suggestion that a 6 second spot will have any lesser effect in this more complete engagement chain than a spot of any other duration. A 6 second spot may serve as a foot-in-the-door for someone scrolling through their feeds, or as @Zac has suggested it may serve as a memory prompt, or in the case of Red Bull a short gnarly highlight from a longer piece of content.
It will probably not do the whole job itself, but can most certainly be an effective component within a larger comms strategy. As might any other single element within that strategy.
There is no ideal length for creativity. If it’s a 6 second spot, so be it. Challenge accepted.
And @Henry, we’re not all lazy. Speak for yourself.
Great point!
Could be a good use here 🙂
I was more referring to broad marketing as there are some targeted uses.
Henry you are totally overlooking the most important factor in the equation, the person watching the ad. Ads are an intrusion on viewers, plain and simple. The shorter, the better. I don’t watch commercial television purely because of this.
I have to say that my experience working on digital video campaigns with Facebook and Google is very different to your assumption that they all just say “make it shorter”.
For the most part, when working with Google, we’ve found that 6″ bumpers are a great way to remind audiences of creative that has been running for a while. Google have actively advocated running a 15″ or 30″ before running 6″ bumpers especially when you have new creative that audiences haven’t seen before. You work your way down to bumpers once audiences are familiar with the creative. The only time Google have advocated 6″ bumpers without also having a longer format is when we have put forward ideas that use the 6″ in an interesting way that is highly engaging.
As for Facebook, while they talk about snackable content that can be consumed on the go, they’re also advocates of longer, or more immersive, content formats for when people are scrolling in situations where they’re relaxed and have more time on their hands.
As you’ve said, we still have time and longer attention spans for content we care about. Binge watching trends are an indicator of our willingness to spend longer periods of time where we consider the time investment worth it, and I definitely agree that people will still watch good ads. But, in a world where people have become increasingly apathetic when it comes to advertising in general, these ultra short formats do have a role to play. As Zac has pointed out, in the case of YouTube anyway, shorter formats are more efficient to buy, and have proved effective at keeping brands top of mind. It is comparable to running a 15″ on TV once the 30″ is well recognised. It costs less and is effective in building memory structures.
In short, these short formats, whether on digital or TV, have the potential to be a valuable part of the media mix and do a certain job. They won’t completely replace the formats that are already in play and the likes of Google and Facebook are well aware of this.
Living here in the US for so long I feel creatively Australia’s copywriters and creatives (separate not exclusive) are genius in comparison but the 6 sec ads were created here specifically for target programming. The split screen while Basketball injuries are cleared, the non TV timeout/ timeout on NFL broadcast and other live feeds needing quick cover for dead air. Also now seeing more 6 secs during credit rolls… not sure then effectiveness (leave that to analysts smarter than me) but as incentives and story builders have been embraced by Advertisers.. way to blow up little things Henry!