I've written about my take on Digital Signage content lengths before, feeling that - as we all know if you've been in Digital OOH for a while - that 30 second spots in our medium simply don't work.

Of all of the unlikely candidates to really be pushing innovative use of mediums, the Dairy Association of Canada - yes...really - has been listening intently to their creative, Internet and mobile agencies and been gaining a ton of attention for their off the wall, very memorable but completely non-traditional approach to advertising.

Per Mediacaster:

Milk's Get a Load of Milk campaign first gained attention with random eight second commercials in movie theatres and on TV in late 2007; now, they're on the mobile web.

I was very impressed with what they were doing and how they were really using MEDIA & CREATIVE together to get attention.

The campaign they're running and supporting web property can be found here at Get A Load O Milk

You can check out the 8 second clips (yes, all of the clips - even for TV are 8 seconds) on the site above after a very long load time for a huge Flash site.

In the US, these short burst clips are called "AdLets" and they've been used in Radio and on TV for the last little bit.?? I think they're called "Spotzers" or something like that in the Great White North.?? I think they're very powerful and useful for our medium.?? They're fast, to the point, sometimes wacky but they make you pay attention and make you remember brand based advertising (and they're obviously working for Direct Response advertising because the campaign is completely built to drive traffic to their web site...if it wasn't working, they wouldn't have continued 2007s campaign through this far into 2008).

For the traditional creatives out there, yes - you have to condense your message down to an 8 second time period, which challenges many who are used to a 30 second storytelling experience, but if you pay attention to how peoples' consumption of media is changing these days and WHERE it's being consumed, including mobile and Digital Signage, folks don't take the time to spend 30 seconds with you anymore - even on TV.

Imagine some of these clips in a C-Store environment, at cash or throughout the store.?? Brief flashes of weirdness, stunts or controversy to get your attention with a really simple Direct Response vehicle (if they're not ready to buy Milk today go to the web site) and a really simple product reminder experience if you are in the mood to buy today (Get Milk!).

I challenge those in the creative side of the business to at least give this some thought.?? If the Dairy Association of Canada can use very poignant, innovative creative and media strategies like this, in 8 seconds, to get their message across, I'm thinking the same can be done for virtually any brand or product out there.