Blink Of An Ad

By Alistair Christopher

For many people, the sight of a TV commercial is a prompt to either bolt to the kitchen for a quick bite or hit the remote for a quick escape. But last month Master Lock, a division of Fortune Brands based in Milwaukee, Wis., likely became the first national advertiser to run a one-second ad--snack-proof and zap-proof.

The commercial--call it a blink ad, for obvious reasons--depicts the company's signature image, a bullet shredding but not opening a lock, together with the logo. The ads are part of a campaign that also uses 30-sec. spots for Master Lock padlocks.

The length of the traditional 60-sec. TV ad has been halved a couple of times to keep up with our shortening attention spans. Now 15- and 30-sec. spots dominate, in part because they cost less. One-second ads are even cheaper to buy (Master Lock isn't saying what it paid), and cheaper to make. But can you sell anything in one second? "It's way too early to tell whether--or how--it's going to impact sales," says John Heppner, Master Lock's vice president of marketing.

"It's a great idea," says Richard Kirshenbaum, co-chairman of Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners. However, he and other admen say blink ads can't introduce products but they can certainly reinforce such icons as McDonald's Golden Arches.

Then again, no one would confuse personal-injury lawyer Jim ("the Hammer") Shapiro with the Pillsbury Doughboy. He is experimenting with several versions of his one-second spot, at $35 each, in upstate New York. In one ad he yells "Hurt!" while the word comes hurtling at the viewer in large orange letters, above his phone number. Even at a second, the ad is as subtle as a car wreck--and, Shapiro hopes, just as likely to bring him new clients.

--By Alistair Christopher