Commercial Sequels

While the practice of continuing your campaigns with a part two to your commercial isn't uncommon, I did see something that was new to me watching TV the other day. It was the Chevy Malibu commercial touting itself as 'the car that can't be ignored'. The first commercial was funny enough featuring a girl out for her daily jog. As she crosses the street she runs straight into and bounces off a rather generic looking car parked on the side of the road. Even the sound effects alone were humorous enough but it still would have been a very easily forgotten ad.

The thing that struck me was that two commercials later (yes I'm one of the few who still watch those) there was a part two the the first one. You see the same girl recuperating in a daze from her first run in with the car and peeling herself off the pavement. As soon as she's back up she does the same thing again, this time going torso first over the hood of the car. It concludes with her standing up once more and walking off in the opposite direction perplexed. Sophomoric as it may be, I though it was pretty funny.

Part two commercials are nothing new but in the past have been done after the first has run for a few months. I had never seen one done in such tight sequence as that. And again while the first alone was rather forgettable seeing the sequel made the message stick with me a bit longer.

So my question would be, is that what were coming to? Are we at the point where we have to double our efforts and time we spend in front of our audience. More importantly, how can this tactic of duplicate messaging be applied to the online space?