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One Second Ads Hoping To Grab Your Eyes

otis wildflower writes "C|NET reports that GE will be airing a new advertising campaign called 'One Second Theatre'." From the article: "'GE One Second Theater,' as the campaign is being called, presents a humorous peek behind the scenes at recent General Electric commercials produced by BBDO. The campaign is intended specifically for new media like digital video recorders, which can be used to watch expanded versions of the spots, and News Corp.'s MySpace social-networking service, where visitors can read a mock profile of Elli, the elephant star of one of the commercials. The spots will also be accessible on MP3 players, through podcasts presented as if they were recorded by Elli and other characters from the spots, and on a microsite offering an online version of the campaign. The multimillion-dollar campaign, scheduled to begin Friday, is the most recent effort by GE to explore media beyond conventional commercials and print advertisements."

18 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. If you got the money, I got the time... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Show me the money and I might pay attention to a one second ad. Unfortunately, my attention span last only a half-second.

  2. Ah, here at last. by pair-a-noyd · · Score: 4, Informative

    Blipverts.

    1. Re:Ah, here at last. by Guysdrinkingbeer · · Score: 3, Funny

      So, this is what twenty minutes into the future looks like.

      --
      Great people don't need people to complete them, great people complete other people. -- Matthew Pawlikowski.
  3. ASCII Version by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

    For those of you using a text-based browser, here is the ASCII version:

        (.)(.)


    Just close your browser really fast to get the speed affect.

  4. This is much too confusing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The advertisements themselves are one second long, yet the complicated explanation that is necessary to understand what is happening in the commercials takes thirty seconds to read. What the fuck?

    Hey, anybody remember back when the point of commercials was to inform you about and convince you to buy a product, and the commercials actually told you what that product was?

    1. Re:This is much too confusing. by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 4, Funny

      If you've been properly indoctrinated, you won't need the 30 second explanation.

      No, when you're shown an image of the queen of diamonds for one second, you'll instantly know what to do. . . . either kill the president or go eat a hamburger.

      --
      It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
    2. Re:This is much too confusing. by bpd1069 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Advertizements have never been about giving you information so you can make an informed buying choice. The sole aim is to get you to buy something. Think Corporate Propaganda.

      --
      --
  5. Lawyers by Mike+Hicks · · Score: 3, Funny

    A friend of mine told me about something similar to this many years ago where a lawyer was experimenting with the idea of a one-second commercial. Apparently the guy in the ad just yelled "HURT?!?" and flashed his phone number.

    If there's any American industry that we'd like to see outsourced....

    1. Re:Lawyers by Who235 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I don't know -- how do you memorize the rack on the girl from the coffee shop in 1/30th of a second to add to the spank bank?

  6. Ouch! by ozmanjusri · · Score: 3, Funny
    One Second Ads Hoping To Grab Your Eyes

    That sounds painful. "My eyes...the goggles do nothing!"

    --
    "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
  7. Anti-Anti-Advertising Technique? by Garrett+Fox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think part of the reason for this is Tivo et. al, and Web-based shows. Each format allows people some means of skipping over ads, right? If the ads are extremely short, maybe people will be more willing to sit through them. Or at least they'll be unable to get up and grab a beer during the commercial break, unless there are thirty ads in a row... Reminds me of that WarioWare game, except that the theme every time is "Buy!"

    --
    Revive the Constitution.
  8. Attention Spans by Umbral+Blot · · Score: 4, Funny

    Is it just me or are people's attention spans getting ... where was I?

  9. Adblock string by mrmeval · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What's the adblock string to keep these out?

    --
    I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
  10. Re:Blipverts? by speculatrix · · Score: 3, Informative
    I too immediately thought "Max Headroom" when I read the summary... you can still find the original programs on various torrent sites!

    For the uninitiated, the pilot episode of Max Headroom told how new high-speed advertisements were overloading people's brains. Max was, well, kind of a cyborg, when a reporter suffering a terrible accident was recreated in a computer.

    For the full spoiler, read TV Museum

  11. And now for the one second post... by mantar · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oh shit... I'm already out of time.

    --
    # man tar
  12. Here's my 1-second ad for Diet Pepsi and Mentos... by RyanFenton · · Score: 3, Funny

    Image

    Mint Mentos+2-liter of Diet Pepsi/Coke = Minor hillarity during a work break. Warm cola tends to work better than cold, 5-10 mentos seems to more than do the trick.

    There - that might just sell some otherwise undrinkable/inedible snacks!

    Ryan Fenton

  13. I've evolved beyond even this... by PDA_Monkey · · Score: 5, Funny
    I didn't RTFA.
    It didn't hold my attention long enough since I've trained myself to ignore anything related to ads.

    The only thing in here which has caught my attention is the post somewhere up above containing this:
    (.)(.)
    --
    Hallo, My name is Inigo Montoya. You kill -9 my parent process. Prepare to die!
  14. yep... was to be expected by __aahlyu4518 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Advertising was dying slowly... Well.. every company was advertising its pants off, but with the average audience that has a concentration with very short timespan (anyone noticed that series on tv don't last an hour or an hour and a half anymore but when you take away the commercials they are about 35-40 minutes), and a total overload of commericials, nobody is paying attention anymore. Well.. there's always tellsell that weak minds fall for.. but anyway...

    So what do you do when a product/service is about to kick the bucket? You re-invent it. And to be honoust.. this could be brilliant. Not only do you revive the interest of the advertisers... you can charge them a huge amount more !! Or do you really think they pay 1/30 of the amount they were paying for a 30 second commercial ? No way !!

    So you make maybe 5 times as much money per second and you have maybe a couple of years to come up with a real solution for the declining interest with consumers, before advertisers get a clue they were suckered. 1 second is just to short for being called subliminal messaging.. but not by much. So maybe it will 'hang around' in people's brain... but that's just the brand... not how good it is.. you can't get a real message across.

    But I have a good advise... LESS advertising... maybe people will notice it again.