Nubank’s Epic Ad Shows How Long Ads Should Be Done

Brands that break the two-minute barrier in their ads are taking a risk. The benefit of a very long commercial is that it gives more room to really tell a story with no need to cut corners on emotional content or brand messages. The danger, though, is that a three-minute ad will exhaust viewers’ patience. A long ad needs to be something special to avoid losing effectiveness from the audience simply tuning out.

Happily, Nubank, our Ad Of The Month this month, is something special. The brand’s team Paolo have crafted a highly emotional, epic ad which takes its time to build emotional response. The ad gives us an emotional story which also demonstrates the high value Nubank Ultravioleta – the bank’s service for high-net-worth individuals – brings to its customers.

Everything about this commercial looks classy and well-considered. Filmed on location in Italy, the ad tells the story of a father and son going on a trip to Europe together. Thanks to the services Nubank Ultravioleta provides, the journey is easy and the travel arrangements seamless. From hotel reservations to currency conversion, every potential difficulty is anticipated and taken care of by the Ultravioleta service. Which means the Dad and son can enjoy the landscape, the food and the connection they share.

At the end, we find out that the trip is recreating an old family journey the two men took together in the son’s boyhood, sealing that lifetime connection and leaving the audience on a peak of happiness.

A premium brand like Ultravioleta has more to gain than most from a long commercial. It makes a statement about the brand’s priorities and acts as a statement of the brand’s own value and exclusivity. But the brand has used every possible creative element to gain and keep viewers’ attention across the ad’s three minutes.

Central to the ad are the characters of the man and his son. The two of them share a real connection and it’s this connection that drives the emotional response to the commercial. It’s an example of what Orlando Wood, in his book “Look Out”, calls “between-ness”, when we can sense the bonds and relationships between characters on screen, making the advert feel more vivid and emotionally real and less like a simple promotional tool. Between-ness is also a way of getting the attention of the right hemisphere of the brain, which responds particularly well to relationships between things and the wider context of an ad.

Two more elements in Nubank’s commercial are very right-brained. The first is the use of music through the ad, with the pair of travelers encountering popular songs and cafe music as they go. The melodic, catchy soundtrack gives the ad an emotional lift. And the other right-brained element is the strong sense of place – giving the ad a travel theme lets Nubank revel in the Italian landscape and distinctive elements of the country, like its famous scooters.

Alongside these emotional triggers, the length of the ad means Nubank can include a demonstration of the benefits of Ultravioleta without it feeling clumsy or obtrusive. The sales messages fit organically into the wider story.

The result is an ad which achieves a high level of happiness early and keeps the audience on that high with each new development. The commercial scores a 4.5-Star Rating on our Test Your Ad platform, well above the 2.7-Star average for Brazilian TV. It’s a score that predicts strong brand growth for Ultravioleta and Nubank given appropriate investment. The ad also gets an Exceptional rating for Brand Fluency – despite it’s length it’s well branded and recognizable as a Nubank commercial.

Long ads are a risk, but Nubank Ultravioleta were right to take it – this is an excellent commercial and one which earns its length to deliver a truly luxurious advertising experience without losing viewers’ attention.