clear channel plays with blipverts
Reminiscent of Max Headroom’s blipverts, where incredibly short tv commercials caused viewer’s bodies to explode due to overstimulation, media giant Clear Channel recently introduced “Blinks,” 2-second advertisements on their radio network of 1,100 stations nationwide. Fox Networks is the first advertiser to embrace this new rapid-fire method of advertising, promoting season premieres of Prison Break and The Simpsons. Network execs are saying the purpose of Blinks are to complement the longer traditional 60-second spots that are normally played on the stations.
One striking feature of the Blink is that the spots will be embedded into content, which may lead the average radio listener annoyed that their fave Justin Timberlake song now includes a commercial within it. Or maybe, it is just another reason to move to commercial-free XM.