When our audience either viewed or fast-forwarded a GE commercial, they’d notice a quick, one second “what was that?” sequential burst of frames toward the end of the spot. Now, via their TiVo or DVR, the viewer had the ability to investigate this hidden surprise by rewinding and replaying frame-by-frame. What they discovered was entertaining added content – “GE’s One Second Theater.”

Our “little” experiment proved quite a success. Research found that viewers spent four times the length of the commercial exploring it, shattering TiVo records. We asked for a second, but viewers gave us two minutes. We also received countless chatter on blogs and logged thousands of search hits on Google.