There was a time when adverts were often short films in their own right. Before television relegated the typical advert to about thirty seconds long, companies would commission lavish promotional films to be shown before main features in cinemas – films which could be as much as half an hour long.
Those times look as though they could well be coming back.
Thanks to the Internet, accepted boundaries as to how long or short a piece of film can be are breaking down, and the world of advertising is taking note of this. Filson gave us the six-minute long Open the Door to Solitude, while Patagonia was responsible for the 27-minute epic Worn Wear.
Will an audience really sit still for an advert this long? Yes – if the film is good enough. This is where all the usual filmmaking considerations relating to story come in: if a brand can construct a story which will sustain a long-format advertising film, then it will be able to hook in an audience.
Think through all of the well-known advertising campaigns that have existed over the years, and you will notice that a lot of them hint at a story. Benetton became famous for creating adverts that gave us a glimpse at an entire society, while on a lower level we find famous characters such as those in the Budweiser commercials, who could easily sustain a comedy short.
So, the key question for brands is this: do we have a story? Note that this does not even have to be a work of fiction. Worn Wear, for example, is based around the true stories of the clothes that people wear – a good way to hook the audience by making them feel as though they are part of the narrative.
It will probably take a while for companies to rediscover the potential of long-form advertising – after all, the format has been dormant for decades. But it is hard to deny the potential offered by the brand video, and brands can ignore that potential at their own risk.
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