MAM
The arrival of the six-second TV spot, will India take to it?
MUMBAI: For advertisers and brand managers, is this the shape of things to come? Come 13 August 2017 and the US-based Fox Networks group is slated to launch a new concept in product promotion and TV commercial on live television: that of the six second spot, a first for the broadcast television industry.
The spots are slated to be aired during the Teen Choice 2017 show between 8 to 10 pm (5:30 am to 7:30 am IST) on television as well as in on-demand streams. The first two brands to jump on to this new unit of advertising are Duracell and Mars. Fox will simultaneously be running six second promos for its TV shows as well.
While Mars will be running six second TVCs for its Snickers and Twix brands during the Teen Choice Awards, Duracell will be pushing its batteries.
The six second spot is another unit of pod of advertising that is being tested in television advertising but it owes its existence to Youtube which pioneered the format.
Both Mars and Duracell are excited because youth today are preferring shorter ad lengths. The expectation is that channel zapping will go down during the ad breaks.
The six-second spot will also offer them innovative ways of telling their stories and brand messages while helping them drive value in their media investments. Both are hoping that the new ad format could play a bigger role in their creative asset mix going forward.
In India, the broadcasting, media and brand fraternity have been quite used to the three or five second tag-ons for sponsor boards which come at the end of every programme segment (or leading into another segment) leading to a commercial break or coming into another segment. But, in most cases media agencies do not create special shorter format commercials specifically for the tag-on spots; they just clip the regular 10-30 second ad to three to five seconds and air it.
Of course, the Indian advertising industry has experimented with long format commercials for a minute to three and a half minutes (remember Tata Sky’s Prison break commercial), but the regular unit has been between 10-40 seconds.
Internationally, the longest ever commercial ran for 13 hours five minutes and 11 seconds and promoted Arby’s Smokehouse Brisket sandwich. It was aired on a local TV network in Minnesota US from 24-25 May 2014. The commercial consisted largely of a single shot of a raw beef brisket being smoked over the course of 13 hours. At the conclusion of the smoking process, the cooked brisket was removed from the smoker, and a chef used the brisket to make a sandwich, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
We have no idea how many watched the Arby’s ultra long spot, but its quite likely viewers did dip in and out over the 13 hours plus to see if their favourite TV shows were back on the telly. Arby’s claimed that almost 350,000 people tuned in with an average viewing time of 38 minutes.
And another commercial by Cycle and Carriage after sales service,Singapore ran on Youtube for 24 hours.
So, will Indian advertisers and agencies also experiment with the six second spot? They have already been dabbling in branded native content and advertiser funded programmes on TV as well as special videos of varying duration for social media platforms.
A few brands may take the six second tip and go for it. As well as some broadcasters. Especially those that target the youth – most of whom suffer from an attention deficit disorder and zap channels with determination during ad breaks.
The benefits are many: for broadcasters more brands could be accommodated during the commercial breaks, probably getting the them higher sales revenues, as they will be in a position to put two spots in the place of one 15 seconder. Of course it’s quite possible that audiences will stick to the channel and not run away. Which again could be win-win for media agencies, broadcasters and brands.
It’s now over to India’s brand custodians and advertisers to take a step forward.
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MAM
Schneider Electric launches One Unit Mission for Women’s Day
Green Yodha 2.0 urges every Indian household to save one unit of electricity daily.
MUMBAI: Schneider Electric just flipped the switch on savings because this Women’s Day the brightest idea isn’t a new bulb, it’s turning one unit off. Schneider Electric launched the second phase of its Green Yodha initiative, ‘One Unit Mission’, on International Women’s Day 2026, calling on every Indian household to save at least one unit of electricity daily. The campaign was flagged off in Delhi by chief minister Rekha Gupta, actor and sustainability advocate Bhumi Pednekar, and other dignitaries.
Rekha Gupta said, “Delhi’s journey towards clean, resilient growth begins with how efficiently we use the energy we already have. Green Yodha 2.0 reminds us that every citizen is a stakeholder in India’s energy future, and saving one unit of power today is an act of nation-building for tomorrow.”
Schneider Electric India zone president, MD & CEO Deepak Sharma added, “India is entering a decade of unprecedented growth, and that growth will require enormous amounts of energy. The real challenge is not just how much power we produce, but how intelligently we use it. If every Indian household saves just one unit of electricity a day, the impact would be equivalent to planting billions of trees or taking millions of cars off the road.”
Schneider Electric India, vice president of marketing Rajat Abbi noted, “Sustainability becomes real when it is simple and measurable. The One Unit Mission is about turning awareness into everyday action.”
In FY 2023–24, India’s energy-efficiency programmes (PAT, UJALA, S&L, SLNP, CAFÉ) collectively saved 53.6 million tonnes of oil equivalent, avoided 321 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions, and reduced energy expenditure by Rs 2 lakh crore equivalent to nearly 6 per cent of national primary energy supply.
The initiative aligns with government efforts on efficient cooling, appliance standards and the Bureau of Energy Efficiency’s state-level SEEI FY 2024 framework, emphasising demand-side efficiency as a cost-effective complement to new generation capacity.
In a nation sprinting toward brighter, bigger tomorrows, Schneider isn’t selling more power, it’s quietly handing every household a daily superpower: the ability to save one unit and help light up a cleaner, more efficient future, one thoughtful switch at a time.
