By Brett Thomas, Owner of Jambalaya Marketing, New Orleans, LA
In the marketing world, there’s a brutal little truth nobody wants to say out loud: most people won’t give a message more than three seconds of their time. Three. Not thirty. Not fifteen. Just long enough for someone to blink, sigh, and scroll on. And in the case of a billboard? That driver’s already halfway to the next exit before the headline finishes loading in their brain.
This isn’t an exaggeration—it’s just how human attention works now. Thanks to smartphones, streaming services, and the internet’s endless buffet of distractions, brains have evolved into finely tuned “skip” machines. Skip the ad. Skip the video intro. Skip the part where the message was supposed to land. So now, the question every business should be asking is: how do you say something meaningful before the audience skips away?
Welcome to the three-second challenge. It’s the marketing version of speed dating. You’ve got three seconds to make an impression. If the message doesn’t stick, it vanishes into the white noise of daily life—right next to all those unread emails and well-intentioned gym memberships.
Clarity Over Cleverness (Unless Clever Is Clear)
First things first: forget trying to be deep. Depth is great… for novels, documentaries, and slow-cooked gumbo. But for billboards, Facebook ads, and TikTok captions, clarity wins. If the message takes more than a heartbeat to understand, it’s already lost.
That doesn’t mean creativity gets tossed in the dumpster. It just means creativity has to be functional. A clever twist that requires decoding doesn’t belong on a billboard flying past at 65 mph. A digital ad that relies on the viewer reading five lines of fine print? That’s basically a disappearing act.
The brain’s on a tight schedule. If it can’t identify who the message is for and what it’s saying—immediately—it puts the whole thing in the “maybe later” file. And let’s be honest… that file is never getting opened again.
Fonts, Contrast, and the Art of Not Being Invisible
Design is where most messages go to die. Imagine spending hours wordsmithing the perfect line, only for it to be tossed on a background image with the legibility of fog. Suddenly, that million-dollar idea looks like it was written in sidewalk chalk during a thunderstorm.
Big, bold fonts are not just for angry tweets and protest signs. They’re the lifeline of readable design. Especially outdoors. A billboard with thin white text on a light blue sky might look modern and minimalist to a designer, but to a driver trying to merge in traffic, it looks like a missed opportunity.
High contrast. Clear hierarchy. Negative space. These aren’t just design buzzwords—they’re survival tools. They make sure the message doesn’t get swallowed by its own background.
Keep the Message Monogamous
One message per ad. That’s it. Not two. Not three. Not a bulleted list of all the great things the business does. The audience doesn’t have time to read a resume—they barely have time to breathe before the next notification pops up.
If there’s more than one message, they compete with each other like siblings fighting over the remote. And what does the viewer do when that happens? Nothing. They ignore all of it and move on. So pick one clear, punchy idea and make it the hero of the ad.
Want people to call? Say that. Want them to stop in? Say that. But never say both in the same space with equal urgency. Otherwise, it’s like giving someone directions and sending them in two different directions at once. They’ll just stay home.
Humor Helps—If It Doesn’t Confuse People
Humor can be powerful, especially when it disrupts expectation. A good laugh buys a few extra seconds of attention, which in marketing time is like getting an extra hour at the bar after last call. But funny only works when it’s also functional. A joke that’s off-topic, confusing, or too clever can leave people remembering the punchline but forgetting the brand.
So if humor fits the brand and supports the message? Go for it. If it’s just there because someone thought it sounded edgy at 2 a.m. during a brainstorm fueled by Red Bull and desperation? Maybe rethink it.
Repetition Isn’t Annoying. It’s Smart.
Once a message works, repeat it. Everywhere. Over and over. People need to hear and see something multiple times before it registers. The first time, they ignore it. The second time, they vaguely recognize it. By the third time, they start to hum along. That’s the goal.
This is why political campaigns repeat slogans like broken records. It’s not a lack of creativity—it’s neuroscience. The brain likes patterns. Once it recognizes something, it holds onto it. So if the goal is for the audience to remember the brand or offer, repetition is the best friend in the toolbox.
Three Seconds or Less: It’s Not a Limitation, It’s a Filter
Thinking in terms of three seconds forces decisions. It trims the fat. It makes the message cleaner, faster, and more effective. It’s the marketing version of a sharp knife in the kitchen—cuts quicker, cleaner, and with a lot less mess.
Whether it’s a billboard on I-10 or a Facebook ad in someone’s newsfeed, the clock starts the second the message appears. And those first three seconds? They determine everything. So make them count.
