Long gone are the days when Television was the main medium from which people grasped information and entertainment, and advertising film was part of the show! Currently, commercials face a hostile landscape, with several new medium and platforms, that have conquered a new generation of viewers, and which offer the viewer the option of skipping commercials or even not admitting them at all. This scenario is changing the advertising film creation and production.
In those baby boomers’ days, commercials were produced with some attention-grabbing features: they were adjusted to be a little louder than normal TV shows and soap operas, so people would be compelled to stay in their seats and pay attention; they would start abruptly, in order to get straight to the point so people would be caught by its message – remember: homes would have a single TV set, placed in a strategic position so everybody could watch the shows – finally, commercials were fast-paced for there was so much information to fit into thirty seconds.
Today, these very same features can cause aversion: most of the time people watch content in a device, with headphones on, so any louder eruption is unwanted; when a commercial appears abruptly while people are watching content, or browsing a site, most likely they will skip it; and definitely we are fed up with bad content, so anything that comes too fast to be understood will be forgotten.
Also, the desperate attempt to fit the message into the five seconds slot before the content exhibition in YouTube reveals to be an awkward experience, since the five seconds barely supports the enunciation of the slogan or catchphrase, backed by the logo. Most likely people will hold their breath until content begins and, again, throw the commercial into the trash bin of their minds.
Some creative experiences are being carried on though, like these, presented in YouTube’s ad about… Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdKSG67uAAw ,
The purpose here is to surprise beyond the anguish to get straight to the content and make people laugh or be in awe and rapidly stamp your mind with the brand. So fast that you even might want to see the commercial again!
On the other hand, Branded Content has been the new face of audiovisual advertising for some years now. There is a clear tendency to invest in relevant video content for consumers that can generate engagement and brand recall.
A good example is Microsoft’s Superbowl Ad of 2019, “We All Win”: https://youtu.be/CM2QJO2IDFo
In order to advertise its Xbox Adaptive Controller, Microsoft shows individual interviews with children who have disabilities, and their parents, stitched together as a one-minute mini-documentary – the extended version on YouTube has about two minutes. Their daily difficulties are exposed as is their optimism and eagerness to consider as a regular child. The Adaptive Controller comes to fill this gap, and the children’s reaction playing with the controller can bring a tear to an unwary eye.
In Branded Content, like in a regular commercial, you can be funny, you can be savvy, you can be sustainable or inclusive, can be responsible or breath-taking. Although, unlike regular commercials, you can take long minutes to tell your story or even produce a feature film, like “The Internship” https://youtu.be/cdnoqCViqUo , by no means you can make a sales pitch! Ever!
The conclusion is that the thirty-second direct-sale message commercial has no longer the first place in the consumer’s share of mind. Branded content is king and the advertising film has now to make a thorough, dramatic change in form to stay relevant and still catch the consumer’s eye!
J.R.Bonavita, PhD
(condensed from the paper “The Crossroads of Advertising Film”, to be presented in the 2nd Canadian International Conference on Humanities & Social Sciences 2019, 14th of July)
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