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Why Movie Trailers Now Begin With Five-Second Ads For Themselves (theverge.com) 97

Posted by msmash from the metahype dept.
Chris Plante, reporting for The Verge: Jason Bourne takes off his jacket, punches a man unconscious, looks forlornly off camera, and then a title card appears. The ad -- five seconds of action -- is a teaser for the full Jason Bourne trailer (video), which immediately follows the teaser. In fact, the micro-teaser and trailer are actually part of the same video, the former being an intro for the latter. The trend is the latest example of metahype, a marketing technique in which brands promote their advertisements as if they're cultural events unto themselves. [...] Last year, the studio advertised the teaser for Ant-Man with a ten-second cut of the footage reduced to an imperceptive scale. [...] But where previous metahype promoted key dates in a marketing campaign -- like official trailer releases and fan celebrations -- the burgeoning trend of teasers within trailers exist purely to retain the viewer's attention in that exact moment. The teaser within the trailer speaks to a moment in which we have so many distractions and choices that marketers must sell us on giving a trailer three minutes of our time. This practice isn't limited to movie trailers, though. Next time you're on Facebook, pay attention to how the popular videos in your newsfeed are edited. Is the most interesting image the first thing you see? And does that trick get you to stop scrolling and watch?
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Why Movie Trailers Now Begin With Five-Second Ads For Themselves More

Why Movie Trailers Now Begin With Five-Second Ads For Themselves

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  • Attention spans that can only be measure in nano- (Score:4, Funny)

    by NotDrWho ( 3543773 ) on Friday April 22, 2016 @01:27PM (#51966301)

    sec.....SQUIRREL!!

  • People are whores and will take whatever comic book bullshit movies throw at them.

  • I noticed that, and I kept on going... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Friday April 22, 2016 @01:34PM (#51966365)

    ...Next time you're on Facebook, pay attention to how the popular videos in your newsfeed are edited. Is the most interesting image the first thing you see? And does that trick get you to stop scrolling and watch?...

    Contrary to what the content creator fantasized would happen, the advertisement in front of the advertisement didn't fool me. I looked at it as little more than clutter that got in the way of me viewing what I wanted to view, so I just moved on without viewing what I had wanted to view.

    .
    It never ceases to amaze me how the content creation types think that annoying their indented audience increases viewership.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I guess it depends on the target of the ad. I don't go to the movies often so when I go on my once-or-twice stop a year I find out more about what's new in that 15 minutes than I do from all other sources combined. I don't imagine I'm their target but how many people sit on IMDb looking for every new release?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Gr8Apes ( 679165 )

      ...Next time you're on Facebook...

      Contrary to what the content creator fantasized would happen, the advertisement in front of the advertisement didn't fool me.

      You're on Facebook....

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      " that annoying their indented audience "

      I think indentation is quite useful, myself.

    • Nope the first few seconds which generate the screen shot people start with are just the "album" art covers. Yes like "album" covers the are advertisements, a few will be noteworthy even if the content sucks.

      In the end it doesn't matter. Some will cough up money and most will Ignore it due to excessive advertising.

      • Nope the first few seconds which generate the screen shot people start with are just the "album" art covers....

        That's probably the rationale the content creator tried to use to justify the fantasy, but I don't buy it, I am not forced to stare at an album cover before I can listen to an album. I can just pick up the album, skip over the cover and listen to the music.

        .
        imo, the equivalent to the album cover would be the picture I click on in order to select the video (trailer) for viewing.

    • It never ceases to amaze me how the content creation types think that annoying their indented audience increases viewership.

      They think that because it works. Just because it doesn't work on you or me, doesn't me it isn't working.
      I worked on a project for a streaming audio solution for a popular youth retail chain. They had metrics of the type and volume of music that promotes more sales. And they had stats on days when a particular store's music system failed, and sales dropped off along with it.
      Personally when I hear the loud music, I turn around and walk out, but their target market isn't me.

  • It's an attention grabber (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Like the "Oh no, my butt trumpet is about to blow!" at the start of the poo-pourri ad.

  • they also use learning psychology. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22, 2016 @01:38PM (#51966403)

    There's a well known technique when teaching people something: you first tell them what you are going to teach them, then you go through the teaching process, then you tell them what they have just learned. This helps people retain the information better than just the middle bit alone. It's used in all kinds of classroom teaching and other legit applications.

    Pre-movie ads now do this. I don't remember the exact words because I try to tune them out, but it goes kinda like:

      "In the next segment, you will see how Toyota cars can make your life better, how Pepsi can quench your thirst, and how Microsoft products can enrich your online life."

    followed by 15 minutes of Toyota, Pepsi, and Microsoft commercials

    followed by, "You have seen how your life is improved with Microsoft tablets, how Toyota is working to give you better mobility in your world, etc"

    It's designed specifically to embed this shit even further into your mind. I find this almost intolerably irritating, and avoid theaters now because of it. All advertising is manipulation on some level, but this has taken it to an unacceptable level, IMHO.

  • The reason is simple (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday April 22, 2016 @01:38PM (#51966407)

    5 seconds is all you have before YouTube allows its user to give you and your ad the finger and finally see what he actually wanted to see.

    And you don't think that they make 2 different versions of the trailer? That costs MONEY!

    • Re: The reason is simple (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Didn't know it was 5 seconds.... Good thing I run AdBlock+

      • Some can't be skipped, actually.

        Honestly, I don't mind the 5 second ads. People make content, I watch it, enjoy it, they should get something for their troubles. It's only pennies that they get anyway, and I also feel that YouTube should get their share of the money. Yes, yes, evil big corporation and it's so big and powerful and greedy and rich and whateverelse, but in the end, it's providing a service to me.

        And that's 100 times more than I could possibly say about the MAFIAA.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mascot ( 120795 )

      Yeah, this, although my take on it would be slightly different.

      Five seconds is what they have to let me know what the ad is for, so I'll know if it's something I'd consider watching all the way through. If I can't tell what the ad is for (game, movie, shampoo, whatever) before I can click it away, it's gone. I've noticed some text, or at least a logo, tends to show up more often now than it used to. I can only guess the reason's related.

      • I don't see the ads. I'm not sure why. Can anyone shed any light on this?

        I watch with Firefox on Kubuntu 14.04.

        Now, a lot of videos I grab via youtube-dl, which would explain no ads, but the ones I watch directly don't have ads, either. Generally these are shorter videos (under 10 min), but occasionally I'll watch 1-hour videos (e.g. BBC nature documentaries) and there won't be ads.

        There are ads when my wife does it on her Mac. I was really startled to see them and thought that it was just for that vide

        • I haven't seen an ad since 1998. I don't know why people don't run adblockers. If you aren't, you are opening yourself up to malware. It is common sense to run adblockers.

          • Oh, I didn't realize Adblock+ could block Youtube ads. I thought Youtube would just serve up a video file that had the ad tacked to the front, but of course I should have realized from the conversation about skipping after 5 seconds that that was not the case. Google would of course send me a customized ad after identifying me from the millisecond timing in my keystrokes typing in the search field, and tailoring the ad to the colour of the sprinkles I use in my ice cream. Hmm, that makes me even more gra

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      And you don't think that they make 2 different versions of the trailer? That costs MONEY!

      I think they usually make many cuts of the same trailer and then focus group the hell out of them until no soul is left.

  • Comment removed (Score:4)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday April 22, 2016 @01:41PM (#51966433)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • They know that often advertisements are skipped. By front loading, they are hoping to attract your attention so that you don't click the "skip ahead 30 second" button - either the figurative one in your head, or the real one in your hand.

  • The only weird thing I noticed about the Bourne one is that it actually includes the text "Official Trailer" in the video.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Piata ( 927858 )
      That's because Youtube is now flooded with fan made trailers for things that are either in production or fans wish were in production. There's also people that use popular media as a front to push their own random videos/channels/products/agendas. Youtube is a giant dumpster now and you need some way of separating yourself from the "new json bournn trailler!!111" clones trying to leech attention for their own gains.

  • They've got it all figured out (Score:3)

    by tom229 ( 1640685 ) on Friday April 22, 2016 @02:12PM (#51966697)
    Now if they could only make the scripts make sense.
    • That should make the movies cheaper to produce too; I figure at least 20% of the $100 million budget for most new films is earmarked for drugs...

  • Screw up (Score:3)

    by irrational_design ( 1895848 ) on Friday April 22, 2016 @02:14PM (#51966707)

    I thought the Bourne trailer producers just screwed up and included the same footage twice. It never occurred to me that they may have done it on purpose!

  • Skip this ad in 5... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Punto ( 100573 ) <puntob&gmail,com> on Friday April 22, 2016 @02:54PM (#51967025) Homepage

    Not another bullshit "this generation has no attention span" article, that's not it and you know it. The 5 second intro is there because some ads (primarily on youtube) are skippable after 5 seconds. If it was 6 seconds, it would be 6 seconds long. This generation doesn't have a "shorter attention span", they just don't like your boring ad, because nobody ever in history liked your ad. The only thing that's different for this generation is that they have the technology to avoid your ad, because it's crap.

    • These companies have really trained me well in skipping and ignoring ads. Nowadays any ad I can't get rid of is like fingernails on a chalkboard. I don't have cable, and paid the extra to get the ad free/reduced Hulu. Usually by time we start watching a DVD/Bluray my finger is a bit sore from bashing the controller to get past all the crap.

      Funny thing is that I actually enjoy movies more. I go to the theater about as often as I ever did (every couple months), but unlike a few years ago I get to go to a

  • Last couple of times when I used the app for the local theatre chain whenever I went to view a trailer they would toss in a trailer for another movie first. It's annoying enough to have to sit through the commercials and previews at the theatre but now they are doing it in their app for previews. It's like they are trying to make stay away.

  • To me this is the advertisement companies getting a clue. It's a 5-second clip that tells me exactly what I need to know, there's another Borne movie. For them to get their message out it has to be very clear at the beginning and end. If we, as the consumer, want to watch the whole thing then we can. If I'm not interested then I will skip it. It's closer to the way things should be.

  • This isn't new.... have you watched TV lately....
    Haven't you been annoyed by... err, I mean seen the advertisements for the show that you're already watching ?
    I mean really, ABC and SyFy have been doing this for well over at least a year. (I think. prolly longer.)

    They show you a 5-10 second blip of whats coming up, either just after the commercial break, or just on the way to one.

    Apparently we're just so busy doing other sh*t... err, I mean need to be reminded that we MUST watch to keep the Nielson ra
  • Does it have any detectable connection to the real world? You understand the only real skill advertising producers need is the skill to convince businesses to pay them to make advertising; whether or not it makes the actual consumers more likely to buy is irrelevant.

  • Next time you're on Facebook, pay attention to how the popular videos in your newsfeed are edited. Is the most interesting image the first thing you see? And does that trick get you to stop scrolling and watch?

    Translation: We believe that our readers are fucking morons.

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