Since the birth of broadcast television, the 30-second audio-visual ad space has been the undisputed weapon of persuasion by the advertising industry. Over the years, this industry perfected the art of storytelling in half a minute. Some of the TV commercials run by global brands like Apple, Nike, Budweiser and Indian brands like Fevicol are testimony to the brilliance of that potential. But the entry price of a 30-second ad can’t hide the fact that it’s an uninvited guest in our living room. These ad spots are strategically placed in the preferred program of the target audience. So if one wanted to watch a cricket match or a favorite serial on TV, there was no option but to watch it with commercial messages.
The first significant blow to the 30-second advertising hegemony came in the 1990s. With the advent of remote-control handsets, TV viewers began to shift channels, especially during advertising breaks. But the biggest blow to the dominance of this format was the smartphones. With the advent of these Internet-wired gadgets, the individual became the decision maker as to which advertising messages he wished to receive. Users ruthlessly swiped anything they were not interested in. Today, ad blocking technology is gaining momentum and ad-free content is a much-awaited feature of many mediums. All indications are that the relevance of a 30 second ad is rapidly declining.
What was once a cultural touchpoint, now seems to have gone to the dustbin of 20th-century artifacts, along with audio cassettes, VHS players and rotary-dial telephones. With the loss of 30-second ad space importance, marketing executives are now like warriors on the battlefield with no weapons in hand.
What is the 30-second ad alternative? Some say it’s a 15-second ad, while others support a 6-second format for message delivery. Still, it’s not as simple as a time-period constraint. There was a structure to the communication in a 30-second ad. In its early part, generally, it sought to establish the need for the product being advertised. This was followed by the performance of the product in action and finally the demonstration of its functional and emotional benefits. The idea of a concise ad spot sounds like an attempt to squeeze the same old structure into a shorter time frame. This incremental approach will not take marketers very far to develop new marketing stimuli for today’s era.
Smartphones have clearly replaced TV as the world’s main medium of communication. The average time spent by users on a smartphone is now more than 4 hours per day. But the amount of time users spend on a particular screen – the time between one swipe and the other – is decreasing. The average attention span between two swipes is now about 4.3 seconds. So even a 5-second message or any other abridged version of a 30-second ad may not fit into this new world of smartphones.
Keep in mind that the classic 30-second format was designed for viewers to watch TV in their living rooms. So any buying decision started among the audience, if it did, something that happened a few days if not weeks after seeing the ad. The main purpose of a 30-second ad was not to induce immediate buying behavior, but to establish a brand in the minds of people with a long-term objective, which could range from a plain recall to a change in temperament or attitude. The focus was on catchy story lines, jingles and characters that could enhance the memorability of the brand being advertised. But in today’s world of e-commerce, the main role of marketing stimuli is to induce purchases within seconds of brand exposure.
Motivating a purchase decision isn’t just about creating a banner ad that screams “Buy now, close price. It takes a lot in the human brain to make a purchase in milliseconds. The more we understand what goes into these ex. Happens – buy microseconds, the more we are able to create the marketing stimulus that drives the buying decision.
It’s important to understand snap decisions. Note that in a game such as cricket, the batsman has less than half a second to take a stroke call after the bowler has released the ball. The neuroscience study of what happens in a batsman’s brain at that moment has revolutionized the way the game is played.
The smartphone stays with the consumers while they are awake. It is a wasted opportunity if this kind of always-on-the-go medium is used by marketers only for purchases, which is a rare practice. Smartphones are best used to increase consumption moments, which are far more frequent. For example, while a handheld device can be used to induce the purchase of fitness equipment, if it is also used to motivate the buyer to use it on a regular basis, the persuasion can The process will be more comprehensive and useful. In many market categories, there is scope to drive e-consumption by creating more consumption moments. But the types of stimuli we deploy to evoke the desired behavior must be different from what is designed to make a purchase decision.
There’s no doubt that it’s time to put a quiet end to that fancy 30-second ad that has served marketers around the world for decades. It is also an opportune time to embark on the exciting journey of developing a good alternative.
Biju Dominic is Chief Promoter, Fractal Analytics and President of FinalMile Consulting