Strangely, the greatest under-10 second TV commercial in the world does not advertise a product or a service. It has no great soundtrack. No fancy trick shots or post production. In fact, it whizzes by faster than the time it actually takes. And yet it freezes you, stuns you, pulverizes you for every hundredth of every one of those less than 10 seconds.
If you have ever watched Usain Bolt streak through, as he repeatedly redefines what the fastest man on the planet is capable of, you realize what it takes to make a difference with every hundredth of a second available to you.
Bursting forth from the blocks, picking up speed like a storm gone wild, leaving everybody gasping behind and powering faster than a thunderbolt towards a record. Getting everything precisely right…that’s what pushing limits to the very end can do. And it is precisely the little extra that keeps going till the very end that makes the big difference. Very often all of us do the 90 per cent or the 95 per cent, with zeal and focus. Where we ease up is in the last 5 per cent and that is what separates the excellent from the immortal.
What is it that makes Usain Bolt the ultimate poetry in viewership? Well, if you ever see him run, you will notice that there is this no letting up from start to finish.
And so it should be with us when creating any piece of communication. No let ups. For example if you are doing a TV commercial, be alert and focused when every single shot is being taken, Keep the alertness going through the edit, the music, the sound design. Don’t ease your grip at any point. Usain himself has learnt that even if he’s winning by a huge margin (which he usually does), he should not be looking sideward or easing up. It may cost him one tenth of a second and in a race where he is constantly trying to put daylight between his own records, even a fraction of that precious second counts. So he cannot be distracted by even the minutest of things. He cannot let his pace or concentration waver at any point. To produce that champion 9.59 seconds, every detail has to flow in surreal harmony and symmetry. Every little detail counts.
Maintaining a fiery intensity from start to finish is a grueling task. From getting the brief for the ad right, to executing it, to selling it to the client. Very often what you think is a great piece of work, is turned down by the client. More and more options are demanded. Newer demands or constraints are put on your creation. What do you do then? Do you ease up? Do you say I’ve done more than enough, let me just give up and stop chasing that great piece of work I set out to do? Worse, that brilliant idea you’ve thought will magically spread over 60 luxurious seconds, is whittled down by the client to a ‘let’s do a crisp 10 seconder’. How do you react then? Give up? Or, think of Usain and the magic you can generate in 9.59?
(The author is the National Creative Director at Dentsu Marcom)