Today, one of our friends tweeted us a video that blew our minds and got us talking:
Seems the absurdity of a hunter celebrating a bear's birthday isn't enough to capture and keep our attention. There's a meteor then we get a "choose your own adventure" at the end. Then we're whisked away to an interactive site, where the video breaks the fourth wall, becoming completely immersive and totally interactive, which had us all asking, "how'd they do that?"
Sure, it's an ad, but it's a great example of how crucial it is to capture our users' attention in the first five seconds. A typical website visitor has an attention span of 5 seconds the first time they see a webpage. Seems like a long time? But think about it for a sec. If the video hadn't been absurd enough, would you have stayed till the end? Then when you get to the ad site, if nothing had grabbed you in that first 5 1/2 seconds, you probably would have just closed the tab and be done with it.
Not only that, but the site really keeps you there for a long time by giving you control of the page. We were really sucked in for several minutes, entering random dates and seeing what popped up next. But we have to ask that while the video captured our attention, did it really accomplish its goal of selling white-out tape?