Andy Warhol would have made a great art director. You could argue his Campbell’s Soup Can is the best commercial layout of all time. Mind you, you can imagine the argument at both agency and client when he insisted on screen printing it.
“Calm down Andy, that’s our margin on the job.”
Interestingly, Warhol could also write a cracking headline. In 1968 he famously proclaimed, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
He was right back then. Now, not so much.
If he was alive today, Andy would be given an amends brief. “Andy, we’ve got client feedback. You can leave the number. Just change the measure. It should read 15 seconds.”
Thanks to TikTok, and our ever-decreasing attention spans, fame is that fast. You’re anonymous. Then you’re famous. Then you’re anonymous again.
So, let’s talk about lack-of-attention spans and what that means for commercial communication.
When I did AWARD School back in Nineteen-Mumble-Mumble our first brief was to do a single 48-sheet outdoor poster. The client was Movieworld. Our tutors dutifully set out the framework. A maximum of seven words, a picture and a logo. No more. Why? Because you’ve got your audience for 4 seconds. So, get in, get your message across, get out. That’s still a pretty good mantra.
Get in, get your message across, get out.
It’s why, with every YouTube script, I’m a stickler for the 6/30/30 rule. Get your attention grabbing visual or audio in your first 6 seconds – before the ‘Skip’ button. You’ve got 30 seconds to hold your audience – tease them into staying with you. Only then can you think about the body of your video – up to 30 minutes if the content is good enough.
Radio is also getting shorter. Now, most of my radio briefs are for 15 second spots. I remember when radio was so cheap you could buy 45 seconds. Or 60 seconds for a really big launch. Plus supporting live reads. Such luxury.
Print has become the land of the retail offer. Open any newspaper or magazine and you’ll be hard pressed to find anything attempting to change a brand perception.
Mail has almost disappeared as a medium. Why? It takes too long to write, too long produce and far too long for an audience to read. Sadly, not only is mail not being used for commercial communication anymore, it’s only being used for box delivery.
But digital and social media aren’t immune either. Remember when we were all writing 4-frame banners? Or carousels had 5 or 6 frames? Now, we’re using statics. Single frames. Organic posts with no copy on the image.
Which brings me full circle – back to outdoor. That 7-word headline now feels positively indulgent. Ideally, it’s 3 words, 4 at a push. And a picture? Only if it’s from a stock library. And royalty-free. And only if it doesn’t fight the headline. And the logo? If anything, that seems to just get bigger.
Of course, there have been exceptions. Nyen Cat had one watcher transfixed for years. Slow TV proved we’ll watch burning logs or train journeys or migrating bears for hours. Content marketing is doing a brilliant job with long-form storytelling. But they’re the exception.
The big question is, where next?
If it’s taken us 50 years to get Andy from 15 minutes to 15 seconds, will 1.5 seconds be next? Is the Max Headroom blip-vert about to become science fact? Will we start counting characters in headlines rather than words? Get ready, you know it’s coming.
And when in doubt remember… get in, get your message across, get out.
Rob Morrison is a rarity in advertising – a grey-haired creative. Rob’s experience includes time as a Creative Director at Ogilvy, BWM (now BWM Dentsu), George Patterson Y&R (now VMLY&R), Campaign Palace and Wunderman. He now runs his own consultancy – morrison.collective.
Here are two more opinion pieces from Rob Morrison: