anyone ever make a commercial?

johnysc430

johnysc430

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Jul 21, 2008
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I'm talking about for affiliate related or an offer you've owned.

have a few niches I'm pretty heavily involved in and I'm thinking about getting into TV advertising.
 


I have a friend who does a lot of work with television and was speaking to me the other night about how programs are the new adverts. You basically come up with a program, place products within it, talk the TV company into running it free (they're often looking for content and would rather not have to pay for it), then take all the profits on various placements.

He explained some advertisers prefer it because if you make a 38 minute program to fill a 1 hour slot, you could get in excess of 10-20 minutes of product displays, or even subtly talked about, and you'll get £80k-£100k profit for that, per program.

They'll pay even more for subtle perception management (positive propaganda), which in many circles is considered non-existent. But governments do it, so why not ad firms? :)
 
-God- said:
I have a friend who does a lot of work with television and was speaking to me the other night about how programs are the new adverts. You basically come up with a program, place products within it, talk the TV company into running it free (they're often looking for content and would rather not have to pay for it), then take all the profits on various placements.

He explained some advertisers prefer it because if you make a 38 minute program to fill a 1 hour slot, you could get in excess of 10-20 minutes of product displays, or even subtly talked about, and you'll get £80k-£100k profit for that, per program.

They'll pay even more for subtle perception management (positive propaganda), which in many circles is considered non-existent. But governments do it, so why not ad firms? :)
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Not sure what you mean by 'program,' but if you're talking about producing an actual show... well, good luck with that. Producing an hourlong program usually costs in the neighborhood of $1-5 million. Most producers/production companies do go into pitch meetings with networks with some advertisers already signed on. But unless you're already in the game, you can't just start from scratch and sell 20 minutes of commercial time to advertisers for a show that hasn't been made yet.

Maybe I misunderstood where you were taking this, but it's far cheaper and easier to produce a :30 spot and air it locally or even nationally on certain networks than it is to get an entire program off the ground. Just remember that there are always two sides to it: the cost of actually producing the spot, and then the media buy to place it in certain timeslots/stations.

@OP: If you're serious about it and this really is for products you own, then you should research local production companies, figure out your budget (including both aspects I mentioned above) and put out feelers. They'll come back to you with a pitch and budget and you can go from there. I really can't speak to the media buying side of things, but I'm sure there's other folks on the forum who know.
 
pegasus2218 said:
Not sure what you mean by 'program,' but if you're talking about producing an actual show... well, good luck with that. Producing an hourlong program usually costs in the neighborhood of $1-5 million. Most producers/production companies do go into pitch meetings with networks with some advertisers already signed on. But unless you're already in the game, you can't just start from scratch and sell 20 minutes of commercial time to advertisers for a show that hasn't been made yet.

Maybe I misunderstood where you were taking this, but it's far cheaper and easier to produce a :30 spot and air it locally or even nationally on certain networks than it is to get an entire program off the ground. Just remember that there are always two sides to it: the cost of actually producing the spot, and then the media buy to place it in certain timeslots/stations.
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I have no intention of making my own program (what you call a show). What i described is what a friend does. What you described is not how it works in the UK.

I can go out tomorrow and get someone to produce me a program and by program i don't mean a 'Lost' or '24', it can be a documentary or whatever. I pay them x, or i can do what my friend does which is 50/50 the profits. It would never cost anywhere near the figures you describe, not even anywhere near 10% of the figures you mention.

I can then take that to a channel and pitch it to them. Then i either pay them, they pay me, or i just let them run it free because it's all my placements and I'm getting paid for the advertising and they have slots to fill.
 
pegasus2218 said:
Maybe I misunderstood where you were taking this, but it's far cheaper and easier to produce a :30 spot and air it locally or even nationally on certain networks than it is to get an entire program off the ground.
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FYI, rarely does a direct response advertiser do a :30 spot. 2:00 is typically preferred. In some cases 1:00 is the sweet spot. Having both a one and two minutes commercial to test is most advantageous.
 
-God- said:
I have no intention of making my own program (what you call a show). What i described is what a friend does. What you described is not how it works in the UK.

I can go out tomorrow and get someone to produce me a program and by program i don't mean a 'Lost' or '24', it can be a documentary or whatever. I pay them x, or i can do what my friend does which is 50/50 the profits. It would never cost anywhere near the figures you describe, not even anywhere near 10% of the figures you mention.

I can then take that to a channel and pitch it to them. Then i either pay them, they pay me, or i just let them run it free because it's all my placements and I'm getting paid for the advertising and they have slots to fill.
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My bad. Didn't realize God lived in UK. Don't know how you guys do it over there.

Unrelated, you guys have some ridiculously hilarious shows on. Peep Show, Mitchell&Webb, and Mock the Week are some of my favorite - excuse me, favourite - programs.
 
pegasus2218 said:
My bad. Didn't realize God lived in UK. Don't know how you guys do it over there.

Unrelated, you guys have some ridiculously hilarious shows on. Peep Show, Mitchell&Webb, and Mock the Week are some of my favorite - excuse me, favourite - programs.
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lol. You'd love The Inbetweeners then, or you should do. That's the latest piece of televisual comedy genius to hit our screens. It's on Youtube, but i imagine it's has a country restriction on it. You could always proxy up though.

http://www.youtube.com/show?p=RquKEiY4K3k&s=1

By the way, didn't mean for my post to come off as sounding so aggressive, glad you didn't take it that way. :D
 
I'd rather a Billy Mays-esque 1:00 DR spot with media buys on dozens of cable channels than putting the time, money and effort into creating a 38 min watered down advertorial for Bravo (a UK channel).

1 minute of pure unadulterated ball-kicking emotive perfection or 38 minutes of Ross Kemp trying to look hard with a picture hook?

USA for there many millions of zombie shoppers pleez.
 
I don't understand why it costs so much to produce this shit - I could make an effective commercial for free. Just proves that you should add filmmaking to your reportoire and keep everything in-house. Anything creative should be done in-house.

With that said, does anyone know where that one epic commercial is of a goth vampire rocker promoting a local restaurant? Oh damn that was good, and that was definitely done on the cheap.
 
Garrett said:
I don't understand why it costs so much to produce this shit - I could make an effective commercial for free. Just proves that you should add filmmaking to your reportoire and keep everything in-house. Anything creative should be done in-house.
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Eh, not so sure I agree with this. Very few people have the talent to just jump into a field like video production and come up with something effective. You have application knowledge requirements, but more importantly creative talent.. plus on top of that, enough experience to be able to mold that talent into creating truly effective content..

In-house is always ideal for anything, so if you have the resources and time necessary, go at it.

If you go to the google ad creation market place (google it), and browse the vids, most examples I agree *are* definitely over-priced, which is why I'm about to dive into the whole industry myself.
 
dreamache said:
Eh, not so sure I agree with this. Very few people have the talent to just jump into a field like video production and come up with something effective. You have application knowledge requirements, but more importantly creative talent.. plus on top of that, enough experience to be able to mold that talent into creating truly effective content..

In-house is always ideal for anything, so if you have the resources and time necessary, go at it.

If you go to the google ad creation market place (google it), and browse the vids, most examples I agree *are* definitely over-priced, which is why I'm about to dive into the whole industry myself.
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In your dissection, just substitute the word 'talent' for 'capability' and I think we are on the exact same page.

Maybe Im biased because I have the fortune to live with some extremely creative smart friends/partners who all work well together, so bringing that in-house is 100% the right thing to do.

I think the big picture like this:

entertaining/quality content + video ability + coding/design ability (what Im learning now) + being strong with analytics/split testing + cashflow + consistency = unstoppable

Im not sure I agree that very few have the talent to be able to do video production. Determination and skillset trumps talent any day. Not to mention simply having the desire and having fun simply doing it (i.e. not "work")
 
johnysc430 said:
dude those tutorials are fucking sick
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Yup, they're a great source. I went through the beginner tuts first and then skimmed through a lot of the regular ones and was able to come up with my designcourse promo (shown at bravetwig.com) - Definitely the best source for learning AE on the net..
 
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