Trent apparently made a last-minute decision to make and broadcast the ads. Designed by former Raygun magazine designer Robert Hayles, the spot featured the band's logo glowering and flickering in black and white as a piano track played. As the ad went on, the logo became brighter and a pulsating beat grew in intensity as the frontman's voice sang the phrase, 'Tried to save myself but myself keeps slipping.'
That 30-second mutation was all anybody – apart from Trent and a few of those close to him, presumably – knew about the mystery album, and it would remain that way for a while. Amazingly, the record wouldn't be released for over a year – on September 21, 1999 – and didn't even have a name. That's presumably the reason the TV spot finished only with the word 'ninetynine' in orange. Very enigmatic.
We know now, all these years later, that the record would turn out to be an epic and ambitious double-album called The Fragile, and that the lyric is a line from Into The Void, the second track on the second disc – and that the clip was a kind of mutated, bastardised piece of music featuring snippets of other songs from the album. At the time, however, there was literally no other information about it. Given that The Fragile wouldn't come out for such a long time, it seems like an odd marketing tactic, but we aren't ones to question Trent Reznor's wisdom. Besides, it was probably the best thing that happened at the awards show anyway…