Last night was a night of small historic note in TV advertising.

LastMinute.com broadcast a three minute TV commercial, split into three, one-minute segments and broadcast consecutively on three different TV channels.

The first was shown at 9:50om on ITV1, the second was broadcast at 9:51pm on Channel 4 and the third ran at 9:52pm on Channel Five.

This was billed as "The Worlds First Mexican Thumb Wave". In fact, LastMinute must have spent quite a bit on this. They obviously had a crew or crews in all sorts of different holiday destinations and persuaded ordinary holidaymakers to join in.

The ad is well edited and the concept of having to channel hop to see it in toto is innovative.

OK, so it's a gimmick, but it worked for me - it got me there channel hopping, and I'm sure it will have for many others. There's a competition running alongside the ad' to "count the thumbs" if you want to try it, click here.

Labels: 3, commercial, count, last, lastminute.com, minute, part, three, thumb, thumbs, tv, wave