As a creative director, you’ve probably asked this question yourself. In fact, you wouldn’t be alone in this at all, to be honest. Plenty of studies have been conducted on this topic and a majority of them have arrived at the same result – economics determines the duration of a TV ad much more than brand awareness does.
For instance, when TVs became a household feature in North America, the average time duration of a TV ad was 60 seconds; similar to what radio followed at the time.
However, as the 70s approached, TV ads became much shorter with a runtime of 30 seconds. Now, we follow what is called the “15 second rule”.
But, despite that rule, some do choose to go for longer advertisements. So, how can we say which time duration is the most effective?
Measuring TV Ad Success
One metric used to measure the success of a TV advertisement is “recall”. Now, you’re probably wondering what “recall” means. Well, recall here refers to how a TV ad is able to engage all the 3 memory banks (Semantic, Episodic, and Procedural) within the audience’s mind. Or, to put it in extremely simple terms, recall is what happens when your target customer is able to remember your ad and also, your brand.
An effective commercial relies on imagery and sound to jog the consumer’s memory. That’s why certain jingles, tagline, and logos are memorable. If you can manage to incorporate an element for each memory bank, you’ve got an ad that is capable of recall.
This is necessary because these elements will immediately bring up images of your brand, which is what will drive the customer’s decision to buy your product.
Now, the question is, can all of this be achieved using a 15 second commercial?
The Answer
Well, the answer is a “No”.
15 seconds is simply too short, especially when you have to consider a voiceover. An effective message cannot be voiced in 15 seconds without compromising its meaning. This will obviously affect recall.
60 second ads, on the other hand, are just too long. Though ads of this duration are effective at registering within each of the 3 memory banks, customers lose interest after the first 45 seconds. Naturally, this leads to improper recall.
Finally, it all boils down to the 30 second ad. So, does it work?
Well, according to the World Advertising Research Center, the 30 second ad is the most effective because it can register within all three memory banks. Plus, the 30 second duration hits the sweet spot, where the video isn’t too long or too short. As a result, engagement is high and so is recall.
So, if your objective is to create an ad that makes an impact on the consumer’s mind, the 30 second ad is your best bet.
ABOUT ROBERTA –
Roberta is a Professional AND award Winning International Voiceover Actor, as well as an accomplished on-camera actress and spokesperson. She lives in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area and is the owner of Roberta Kennedy Voice Talent and RK Productions, Inc.
She voices for companies around the world using her state of the art, broadcast quality studio. She’s hired for commercials, web demos and explainer videos, product infomercials, documentaries, promo/imaging, political ads, e-learning videos, podcasts, guided real estate tours, telephony/IVR projects, high profile corporate presentations, video games and character animation.
Her voice is described as: playful, contemporary, compelling, commanding, inviting, sultry and smooth. A hip edge with sophistication, bold, warm, interesting and engaging are also commonly used adjectives to describe her voice.
Her home studio is equipped with ipDTL, ISDN and phone patch capability with lightning fast turnaround times! A voiceover talent with over 20 years of voiceover acting experience, she offers a full range of voiceover services at highly competitive rates & will work with your budget to help you promote your business to new levels of excellence!
To request a personal quote or audition and/or to review more of her credits & demos, feel free to visit her website: www.robertakennedy.com– or mail her at roberta@robertakennedy.com. You can even give her a call on (408) 313-7202.