David Ogilvy is one of the fathers of modern advertising. According to official historiography Ogilvy always valued the message more than the rest of the ad content. Ogilvy based his communication on the text, the script, what was written. In fact in most of his ads the text takes much of the spotlight. But what if we could put Ogilvy ads on Youtube? How would Ogilvy overcome the 5 second rule?
Youtube forces you to watch 5 seconds of the ad, but then lets you skip it. So the whole message has to go through 5 seconds or convince the person in front of the screen to look at it to the end. In 5 seconds the ad has been impactful enough to hold the interest of the person watching it. How is this impact generated in just 5 seconds?
It is necessary to give importance to these 5 seconds and not only on Youtube. These 5 seconds need to be kept in mind every time we have to make a presentation. What can we explain in 5 seconds? (counting that 5 seconds is about 10-12 words). The key is to take into account everything that is being communicated without a voice. The presence, the image. It is necessary to generate impact in the first 5 seconds, to generate interest. Even if the audience is captive (as in a conference) we need to be aware of how it will impact our start.
The 3 main points to consider are:
- A smile. Let it not be false.
- Raise your eyebrow, half a second.
- Step on the ground safely.
And a very useful fourth: be punctual! We can't imagine a black screen on Youtube waiting for the ad to start…
