This TV commercial is as interesting as watching paint dry. Because that's exactly what it is -- a man painting a fence.
But despite the potentially tedious subject matter, many find it oddly mesmerizing. The three-minute promo for British wood stain and paint manufacturer Ronseal aired in the United Kingdom on Channel 4 on Friday night.
And it immediately sent Twitter users into meltdown -- with many revealing that they didn't dare look away, over the fear they'd miss a key development.
The hashtag #RonsealAdBreak also trended.
As it was, the commercial remained true to the company's slogan of, "Does exactly what it says on the tin."
It continued with the man unhurriedly painting the fence panel, before he eventually turned to the camera and said, "I can't believe you've been watching me paint a fence for 3 minutes."
Ronseal added an extended, bonus 11-minute clip to its YouTube channel just in case, you know, you need a bigger fix and want to watch the man finish off the job.
Here it is:
Slow TV, as the phenomenon of covering a seemingly ordinary event in its entirety has been dubbed, has increased in popularity in recent years -- with Norwegian broadcasters taking the lead.
Entire train journeys, reindeer migrations, boat trips, and logs burning on a fireplace have been documented in all their glorious detail. But this is believed to be the first instance of the format being used for a television commercial.
"It's about stealing viewers' attention back at a time when their are hundreds of channels and so many different screens to look at," the spot's creative director Rich Pearson, from agency BJL, told the Guardian.
"There's not much happening -- it's a man painting a fence, drinking from a cup of tea with a dog barking in the background -- but it sucks you in," Pearson added.
