A goldfish called Bob, long copy ads, and eight seconds is a big fat myth...

I have a goldfish.

His name, for obvious reasons, is Bob.

According to some people who say they know these things…the average human’s attention span is now one second less than a goldfish’s.

A whole eight seconds, apparently.

This isn’t very good news for Bob, whose memory isn’t great at the best of times.

It’s terrible news for copywriters who love writing long copy ads. And just as bad for anyone looking at them who likes to read them.

Well it would be if it were true.

It’s actually a big fat myth.

According to at least two studies, goldfish might be able to remember things for a whopping five months or more!

This is great news for Bob, who now tries to read short stories and the odd novel here and there. Time permitting.

His lifespan is around ten years. He has another five to go. Health permitting.

It’s even better news for advertising copywriters who thought that long copy ads were on the way out and text the length of tweets (280 characters) was the way to go.

It means they can go back to believing what they always believed before they were so rudely edited. That ad copy should be as long, or as short, as it needs to be to get the message across in the most effective way possible.

It means that attention span starts the millisecond a pair of eyes alights on a printed, digital, audio, or filmed ad…and doesn’t stop at least until after the ad exits stage left.

It means that interest is the prime determining factor when it comes to reading ad copy or not.

If what it says floats your boat, you’ll keep on reading. The millisecond the boat starts sinking, you’ll jump overboard and start swimming somewhere else.

Now of course we live in a busy world.

Of course space, time, and interest, are all at a premium.

Of course there are more marketing messages bombarding our retinas and eardrums on a daily basis than ever before.

And of course they all fight like hell to be seen and heard. Blood is often spilled.

But it’s not the quantity of the messages that matters.

It’s the quality of the content.

That’s what decides whether it’s worth stopping and checking out or passing by and immediately forgetting.

My goldfish Bob is a big fan of content quality.

As long as he doesn’t have to spend any longer than two or three months trying to think about it…

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The above is an extract from my book Ad Infinitum. Like its sisters Ad Lib, and Ad Hoc, and Ad Interruptus (still in the pregnancy stage) it's about creativity, advertising, life, and lots of stuff in between.

You'll find the first three on Amazon, along with my other books, Love & Coffee and Heaven Help Us. In print and ebook. Waiting for you. Just look here:

Ad Infinitum: https://amzn.to/3pof7Uq

Ad Lib: https://amzn.to/2kd4LKf.

Ad Hoc: https://amzn.to/2Nx8GL8

Love & Coffee: https://amzn.to/28IWaHq

Heaven Help Us: https://amzn.to/2nkQ1Jk

Grab a coffee, grab a chair, and grab a sneaky peek.

Then grab a copy..