Becoming Top Dog with Short-Format Ads

In an era where micro-narratives dominate the social media landscape through the likes of Tik-Tok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube, brands face the ever-evolving challenge of making their mark within ever-shrinking formats. While the task of creating advertising that drives long-lasting brand impact in constrained formats might seem daunting, it doesn’t have to be guess work. With some of our previous deep-dives into shorter formats revealing best-practice learnings for advertisers, what our broader research into the topic continues to underline is the importance of prioritizing recurring themes, characters, and other creative devices to ensure these condensed narratives pack a powerful punch.

With this in mind, we turned our attention to the recent brand refresh (and wider campaign launch) of Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs, conducting a parallel test to evaluate the creative effectiveness of 30, 15, and 6 second placements. Specifically, we exposed respondents to only one of the three spots each — reflecting that the vast majority of people in a real-world environment will only likely be exposed to a single touchpoint. Given this it’s imperative that they each individually work as hard as possible to deliver on campaign objectives.

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Introducing the brand’s new mascot, Frankie, a brash yet endearing (and quintessentially New York) hot dog, the campaign was generally well-received — proving highly attention-grabbing and enjoyable. However, the longer format was critical in establishing context for this unfamiliar character, with the 30 and 15 second cuts allowing for stronger narrative development, primarily focusing on Frankie’s New York roots.

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Combined with the classic American suburban backyard setting, the longer creatives felt much more synergistic with people’s expectations of the iconic NY-founded brand. In contrast, without sufficient context, viewers were left puzzled by Frankie’s aggressive demeanor and the hot dog’s role in the 6sec cut, impeding overall enjoyment.

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The 30sec spot excelled in highlighting Frankie’s New York persona, reinforcing the brand’s authenticity and light-hearted personality. Meanwhile, the 15sec spot effectively conveyed the product's key message — being “all-beef” — meaning it delivered on the all-important job of tapping into people’s primary needs when purchasing hot dogs (and ultimately proved just as effective as its longer counterpart in this respect).

However, in comparison the 6sec spot didn’t fare as well. Confusion around the narrative and role Nathan’s Famous played within it meant the ad struggled to land either emotional or functional impressions. Taking a step back, the wealth of learnings at our disposal continues to show that individual campaign executions don’t have to rely on exposure to other campaign touchpoints to be understood and drive impact. Furthermore, it’s a fallacy that a short-term trade-off is necessary to realize the longer-term upside of investing in recurring branding devices — achieving both can and absolutely should be the goal all advertisers set for themselves.

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Putting aside short-term opportunities to optimize the 6sec spot’s impact, it’s clear that the new creative direction for Nathan’s Famous has sown the seeds for greater long-term effectiveness. As an embodiment of the brand and its values, Frankie represents all that is great about distinctive brand assets. Once he becomes instantly identifiable for Nathans Famous the brand is afforded greater creative flexibility, particularly when it comes to deploying him in ever-shrinking formats. The hurdles necessary for an ad to form an all-important brand connection become that much easier, freeing up creative ‘real estate’ to instead focus on delivering a lasting impression. As is always the case, this is only possible with relentless consistency and commitment to the cause!

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