Did you notice the subtle way Verizon changed one of their commercials?

They shortened it to fit a tighter time slot.
A lot of commercials are formatted for different lengths

I was just talking about that a few days ago. Great question.

Tighter time slot? It cut off 1 second so I don’t think that’s it.

probably the current economic situation in the US make such comments “unpalatable”. Or it made him look like a mobster, which, i’ve seen that ad, i thought he was.

or, like @Dog said, it’s been shaved.

@dog, do you KNOW that for a fact or is that speculation?

I think they took that 1 second and played it during the Superbowl, but I could be wrong.

I’m thinking they changed it in response to many angry people who OWE money only because of the current economic situation?

What I know is that I saw the full version of the commercial last night. Thus if it was censorship the segment would not again air.

Since commercial airing costs $ by the amount of time aired and the time of day aired I have see two or three versions of a lot of commercials.

Here is a story about a different commercial and a quote below from the maker of the ad:

“A one-minute spot that goes into heavy rotation is a pricey venture,” Jaglund said. “Often, a commercial will be shortened to save money. What many viewers don’t realize is the level of skill and artistry required to take a perfectly realized one-minute piece and edit it down to 30 seconds without losing its essence. It’s a subtle and demanding art. Yes, sometimes we have to cut out a cute thing an animated polar bear says, but it must occasionally be done for the sake of economics.”

@Dog That’s perfectly understandable and I’ve seen it myself, but what’s 1–2 seconds really going to accomplish? Also, it’s Verizon and they’ve got more than enough money for advertising which is noticeable based on how many commercials they run and that, as far as I know, they haven’t shortened any of them in this way in the past.

Shortening a commercial from 60 to 30 seconds is normal. A lot of companies do that, and they do it all the time. We’re trying to figure out why a company would only knock of 1–2 seconds. If not for censorship then I don’t see another reason.

It costs money to edit an already circulating commercial too

You notice that two seconds being cut out because the dialog has changed.

Do you notice if the establishing shot is 5 seconds shorter, and the Verizon logo at the end is displayed for 8 seconds instead of 14, or if the pauses in the dialog have been shortened by 1/4 second here, 1/2 second there?

@cwilbur exactly!

Since I don’t really care about establishing shots or the company logo… no. As for the pauses, yes I did check for that, but that’s mostly because I like catching editing flaws.

The time the logo is displayed doesn’t really matter as much as dialog being cut. At least not to TV viewers.

Yeah, i really doubt that they cut off 1–2 seconds from a commercial. The ad breaks are timed and the commercials are almost always a stadard length.

Most likely, they just edited a few different versions of the spot and have them in rotation to keep it slightly fresh to viewers.

They probably got bad feedback from vocal viewers (or an exec’s spouse) that worried the brass enough to change the ad. I’ve seen it happen before.

I thought it was funny.

As others have pointed out usually they chop commercials to make airing them cheaper. In this case it didn’t seem like a whole lot was removed. Perhaps there was some other reason, maybe so people don’t feel bad when they are watching the commercial because they DO owe people money?

You want people to feel good when they watch your commercials, not guilty.