Silent/Still TV Spots: For Those Seeking Success in Advertising

Picture this: you’re watching TV. It’s been a long day and feeling numb is feeling like just the ticket.

The commercial break begins. 

Ads, ads, ads. Buzzbuzzbuzz. Noise and motion. Noise and motion. Noise and motion. Then… 

SILENCE AND STILLNESS. 

Whoa. 

First you wonder if your TV’s broken. You look closely — very closely. And the text hits your brain-vein and you understand: this is an ad.

It’s a product.

And it’s just the product. Naked. Nothing hidden. No distractions.  

Just the product’s existence. It’s out there, waiting for you. 

Before the spot has run its duration, you’re getting in the car, buckling up, going to buy the product. On the way, you might wonder (good wondering gets done in cars) about the person or agency so innovative as to release an ad like this. That agency is probably raking it in and winning awards. And they probably spent about $2 making this brilliant spot.  

It looks like Pepsi already kinda did this with a Superbowl ad, but theirs was about deaf people, which is cleverer than what I’m going for here. I’m talking about bare essentials. Silence. Stillness.  

It’s an ad. Yes. But unlike every other ad, it has: 

-No sound 
-No movement
-No image
-Just copy in generic type  

I have wondered (aloud, as L can attest) about the legality of doing this. There must be someone somewhere who would say you can’t — you can’t! — you can’t have silence and stillness. 

So maybe the agency would need to get lawyers involved. So be it. This ad is one for the ages and worth fighting for. 

Everyone will try to copy it, surely. Which would of course diminish its innovation in time. The world will be back to noise and motion soon enough. But we have to at least try, don’t we? Can’t we at least try it? 

Can we not offer for thirty seconds an oasis of truth?