The prospect of making a TV ad that everyone is going to see can feel quite daunting, but there is lots of help and advice available. Here’s an outline of the process involved, which should give you a steer.
1. Writing the brief
Writing a brief is an important part of the process, as a good brief leads to improved communications and ultimately better work.
Before you start, you will need to ask yourself some questions such as:
- What are the key objectives for this advertising campaign?
- Is there a problem you are trying to solve?
- What is the personality of your brand? And therefore, what tone of voice do you want the ad to have?
- What are the most important brand attributes that you want to impart?
- Are there any time-sensitive dates involved e.g. a new product launch?
- How much money do you have to spend?
Ideally, the brief will also need to include:
- Some background about the brand and any previous advertising activity
- Information about the target audience (if known)
- Are there any mandatory elements that need to be included e.g. logo, end line, financial regulations
- Information about timings and also the sign off process
2. Briefing your creative partner
Typically, advertisers choose to work with a creative agency or full-service agency as their creative partner. However, advertisers can also choose to work directly with the broadcasters and their in-house creative teams.
Either way, there will be an initial meeting where you brief the creative team about what you want based on the above written brief. This is their opportunity to interrogate you about what you want the final product to be and your opportunity to explain what’s most important to you and what your expectations are.
The creative team will then come back with suggestions for the ad and you select the idea you like best. It may take a few meetings until you get to this point, but the better the initial brief, the faster the process is likely to be.
So you’ve made your ad and booked your airtime-what next?
Compliance
Your commercial must follow relevant market codes before broadcast. This pertains to alcohol, medicines, food, gambling, financial services etc. Broadcasters are not allowed to show ads that are misleading, harmful or offensive. The Channel you plan to advertise on dictates what codes you need to follow.
Rotations
The broadcaster you are advertising on will expect to be instructed formally according to their required process
Delivery
Broadcasters require content to be delivered by an approved distributor such as Peach Video. This ensures content arrives in the correct format with the required metadata and will be transmitted in the best possible quality.
Once your ad is finished and has been cleared , it’s ready to go on air and start communicating your message. Be prepared for the impact of advertising on TV and ensure that you have enough product in stock, enough people to answer the phone and your website has enough capability to handle all the extra users generated by the TV ad.