The Three-Hour Formula

Last night I had the relaxing pleasure of watching a three-hour-long movie: The Great Escape. This 1960's classic depicts the intricate escape plan hatched and implemented by a group of Allied officers trapped in a Nazi POW prison. Although the film is based on a true story, the plot was significantly augmented in order to create a compelling film.

Even though the movie itself is quite good, what particularly interested me was the actual length and how a film this long could hold my attention. I live in a world where entertainment can be captured and consumed in milliseconds. In addition, most modern films are around two hours or less in length - often filled with action and/or intricate plot twists. So the habit of sitting down in front of a television set - which is endowed with over 500 channels - without changing the channel for three hours is not very ingrained in my being.

So what made The Great Escape good enough to hold me, a very selective attention-giver, for three hours? It was a surprisingly simple balance of good acting - quality of delivery, a sufficiently novel and captivating plot - intellectually stimulating experience, and fun - emotionally stimulating experience.

The Bing Approach

I've begun to visit Bing at least once a day. I don't believe that it offers a better search engine than Google, but the daily rotation of interesting images is worth a quick peek.

Microsoft has created a reason for me to come back every day. Although that reason is far-removed from the core functionality of Bing, it does get me to at least give it a glance. They've won one battle - capturing my attention. But they've failed to build a superior product so far.

So is this worth anything? Will the novelty of interesting/fun/cool images wear off? Probably. But they do have a few more months before that happens. Bing has its foot in the door but doesn't have the body to walk through. This seems like quite an expensive approach, but for large companies it's viable.

Functional Flaws

Riding the subways of New York is always a unique experience. It runs the gamut of wonderful, inspiring, depressing, disgusting, repulsive, and dangerous. It can also be quite cathartic. Part of the experience is viewing the diverse set of both intentionally and unintentionally absurd posters plastered across nearly every station and inside nearly every train - primarily serving as advertisements.

Today I realized that I've grown immune to actually noticing most of the posters. The promise of perfection is no longer an effective attention-getter. I do notice those posters which are in some way flawed, imperfect, or clearly vandalized. If something is out of place, unexpected, or obscene, I will usually take an extra second to see which unfortunate brand has been affected.

This is probably neither positive nor negative for the advertisers. But it does indicate that the dirty and deranged is still unexpected and eye-catching in certain environments. Flaws will probably force people to take notice, but the impressions may be counter-productive for the brand. Some companies may benefit from intentional flaws if all they seek is attention.

Subway poster Vandalism Art, originally uploaded by Mark_Baratelli.