ABSTRACT
Fifteen-second commercials were first introduced in the 1980s. They were attractive to advertisers previously unable to afford advertising on TV, with the result that money was redirected out of print into fifteen-second TV commercials. A general principle in the psychology of learning is that it is harder to get into people's minds than it is to stay there. In other words, there are two processes: the process of learning and the process of priming and reinforcement. Usually the first thing people want an ad to do is break through the clutter and get noticed. Shorter-length commercials, when used as a solo with low-involved audiences, have great difficulty breaking through the clutter. It is less demanding to get through to an interested, motivated audience. The communicator has to put in less work to get the message across because the audience is predisposed to understand and internalize the communication.
