• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 23, 2021

In defiance of conventional ad industry wisdom about the increasingly shortening attention spans of most consumers, this year’s Entertainment Lions winners were full of long-form content examples.

All five of the category’s gold winners were feature-length films, and even its two Grand Prix winners -- Dentsu McGarryBowen’s “In Love We Trust” film for Sinyi Reality, and 72andSunny’s “Swipe Night” for Tinder -- require much more than the “seconds” of attention-span time the ad industry has been leaning into in recent years.

“In Love We Trust” is a seven-and-a-half-minute film telling a heartwarming story about lifelong lovers, while “Swipe Night” requires “dozens and dozens of minutes” to experience on Tinder, Jury President Jae Goodman -- CEO of Observatory -- said during a Lions debriefing session.

“In a world of six seconds where we are screaming at people, it’s okay to slow down and give audiences the benefit of the doubt,” Goodman said, adding that the category’s jurors were intentionally trying to send a message by awarding great, long-form content.

“That’s a signal we are trying to send,” he confided, adding that while the era of “disposable” content may not be over, the writing is on the wall because conventional video advertising environments are eroding more and more as consumers move to ad-free or significantly reduced streaming platforms and alternatives to ad-supported television.