The NFL is getting annoyingly creative with tiny ads this year

Ultrashort ads aren't uncommon during the Super Bowl, when each second of marketing time costs thousands of dollars. Regular season NFL viewers, though, are going to have to adjust to the especially annoying format as Fox rolls out six-second ad spots during games this fall.

The new spots run less than half the length of the 15- or 30-second ads that are the norm for TV, The New York Times reports, and may even play during in-game breaks, such as "in a box adjacent to players on a field during pauses." "When the six-second ads are placed in unique positions, it has the potential to gain even more attention than a traditional unit," Fox Sports president Eric Shanks said of the decision.

The format is inspired by digital commercials people see every day on their phones, such as those that run on Snapchat or Facebook. "It's a long enough amount of time to actually tell a story, whether it's to convey an emotion or deliver a product message or a piece of news, and yet short enough that the consumer is not irritated by being forced to watch an ad," said Tara Walpert Levt, the agency and media solutions vice president at YouTube and Google.

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Decide for yourself by watching the examples of six-second ads below. Jeva Lange