Ad Buyers Eye Clear Channel's 'Blink' Spots

AD BUYERS EYE CLEAR CHANNEL'S 'BLINK' SPOTS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Suzanne Vranica suzanne.vranica@wsj.com ]
Commercials lasting only five seconds -- and some two-second ads called "blinks" -- are in demand by marketers. Clear Channel stations are also offering blinks that are just one-second long, but they haven't found any takers -- yet. Clear Channel started offering the super-short spots in hopes of bringing in more ad dollars, part of a broader effort to revive ad sales in an industry hurt by competition from other media and listener fatigue with commercial overload. CBS Corp.'s CBS Radio, the No. 2 radio company after Clear Channel, has sold five-second ads as well, including some this year for TV networks. Unlike traditional radio ads, which tend to run 60 seconds in minutes-long commercial breaks, the minimessages can be tucked in between individual songs in a series. Marketers hope that positioning gives them a better chance of being heard, since listeners often change channels when a commercial break starts. Of course, the brevity of the spots also makes them easier to miss. Clear Channel is pricing the five-second spots, called "adlets," at 18% to 21% of a standard 60-second ad, which in a top-10 station in a major market can go for about $800, media buyers say. Two-second ads cost even less -- 10% of a 60-second ad, or roughly $80. So far, Clear Channel has sold adlets to about 12 national advertisers, along with a slew of local marketers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115975041919379557.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
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