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Twitter launches a TV ad for Moments, and it's a touch crazy

Technically Incorrect: In order to begin selling its Moments feature, Twitter releases an ad to coincide with the World Series. It's not quite the same pace as baseball.

Chris Matyszczyk
2 min read

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.


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Tweeters can be very creative.

Twitter screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

Twitter and TV have a deep relationship.

Many people cannot help but watch the latter without using the former to emit their instant reviews.

On Tuesday, however, some watching the World Series might have been stunned by the meta-nature of Twitter advertising on TV.

In an attempt to promote its new Moments feature, which supposedly makes Twitter simpler and more exciting for those who think it isn't, the company ran an ad that moved at a pace that baseball never has.

It featured tweets sent during the MLB playoffs, but set to a narcotics-infused visual rhythm.

Here was the Toronto Blue Jays' Jose Bautista offering his legendary bat-flip. There were people tweeting about the Toronto Blue Jays' Jose Bautista offering his legendary bat-flip. Isn't Twitter great?

The tweets in the ad flash by so quickly that you have to freeze the ad to read them. Still, because I am your servant I slowed the ad down to see how original and witty the tweets featured here actually were.

I managed to catch this: "#BatFlip forever on loop." Then there was the riveting: "Let's go Royals!"

It's astonishing how Tweeters use their imaginations and captivate those of others.

Of course, the whole point is to make Twitter more exciting for younger sorts who have tiny attention spans, but love to parse single frames of YouTube videos in their downtime.

When Twitter launched Moments, it said that there would be a substantial marketing campaign. It's unclear how substantial this will be, although a Twitter spokesman confirmed to me that this ad was just the beginning.

This isn't the first time that Twitter has advertised on TV. In 2012, it ran a 15-second miniature to coincide with the Pocono 400 Nascar race. At the time, this was said to be an experiment. It turned out not to have been repeated.

But given that the young don't seem to love baseball quite as much as they used to (late World Series start times on the East Coast don't help), some might think the subject of this new ad a little odd for Twitter's first TV expose of Moments.

Perhaps the real target isn't the young, but investors. After all, they're very concerned that the company doesn't make enough money. And investors love baseball, don't they?

Well, they have ever since they heard it was actually called Moneyball.