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What
must be done to create the best TV commercials
Producing the very best and most effective TV commercials
The single purpose of a television commercial is to sell the product
or service. The fact that the advertisement may be interesting,
funny, informative or well produced is secondary to the main purpose,
which is to sell the product or service. Knowledge in using the
latest video equipment and the latest video effects and editing
software has absolutely nothing to do with creating an effective
television commercial and understanding how to sell a product. One
should never leave the creation of the television commercial to the
television producer or the video editor. Rather, the TV producer and
the video editor must be performing their service under the strict
guidance of a master advertising developer, which is normally a team
of top creative people in an advertising agency, with years of
experience in understanding what sells, what does not sell and how to
best present the product.
Television is both
a visual as well as an audio medium. Many people are surprised to
know that our hearing accuracy is much better than our visual
accuracy. For example, if you were to slow down a video by 20
percent, most people would not notice that the video was being shown
at a slower rate. However if you were to slow down an audio recording
by 20 percent, almost everyone would immediately recognize that
something was wrong with the sound. This is very important to
remember when producing a television commercial and audio must not be overlooked.
The key elements
that every television commercial should or must have includes:
Elevator pitch:
Broadcast television commercials are mostly 30 seconds in length,
though some can be as long as 60 seconds or as little as 10 seconds.
You can think of a television commercial as an "elevator
pitch", that is you only have that short length of time to
convince the potential buyer to buy your product or service. With
this in mind, you must focus not on explaining the full details of
your product, but on having the viewer remember the product and
presenting the product in the most positive light possible.
Memorable slogan:
Ideally the key elements to a television commercial is a catchy
memorable phrase or slogan, but such a phrase MUST make the product
being sold memorable to the viewer. Who can forget the Wendy's
commercial with the older woman demanding "Where's the
beef?". The slogan was so effective in the mid 1980's that
everyone was repeating it, including presidential candidates.
Needless to say, Wendy's sales skyrocketed. There are many other examples.
A
catchy jingle
is essential: A catchy theme song is an extremely effective
method of pushing a particular product and probably as much time and
money must be invested in the song as in producing the commercial
itself. The goal is to have the viewer humming your theme song to
themselves all day long, thus the viewer is replaying the commercial
to themselves! Again, the theme song must immediately be linked, in
the mind of the viewer, to the product being sold. Ideally, the
product name should be repeated in the song, perhaps in the chorus
and perhaps the beginning words and ending words of the song should
be the product itself. This is not an easy matter to do, but if done
right, the commercial will be vastly more effective, than without a
proper theme song. It should be noted that certain types of
commercials, such as perhaps a serious social issue, may not want a
catchy worded song, but rather a unique background melody.
The viewer must
be told what to do: A television commercial viewer must be told
how to buy the product, to "buy now". Experience has shown
that by simply adding the words "buy now" or "go to
your local store and "shop now", that sales increase from
12 to 15 percent.
There of course
are many other complex elements in producing an extremely effective
television commercial, point of purchase video or trade show video,
and only the key elements are outlined in this brief article. If you
would like to discuss a particular project, please contact Frank Didik.
Remember, an
interesting, memorable commercial is a failure if after watching the
commercial, the product is not foremost in the viewers mind. Sound in
TV commercials is more important than the images. Trendy,
"creative" and hip are not good, unless the product sells. ---
Frank X. Didik, March 9,
2016
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