The Living Room’s Top 10 Tips to Make a Successful TV Commercial

1. Have a great script! Without a great script you’re dead in the water before you start. Ask any film director, a great film always starts with a great script, without it you’ve got a flop on your hands. It’s exactly the same with TV advertising. We’re shocked at just how many bad scripts get made into commercials. Don’t allow your agency to sell you a poor script. The link between great creativity and advertising effectiveness has been scientifically proven
2. Have a Big Idea for your brand, without this you will not be remembered and will got lost amongst the noise out there
3. Have a single minded proposition. Don’t cram too much into your ad. If you throw 10 balls to someone, they will only be able to catch 2-3 at best. This is similar to messages in a commercial. Viewers will only be able to absorb 2-3 messages from viewing a commercial, so don’t try to cram in too many messages. Decide on your most important messages and design your commercial to sell just those
4. Ads with emotional appeal work best. Human beings are emotional beings and often act on emotion. Too many advertisers ignore this and appeal only to the rational. BIG MISTAKE
5. Sell the benefits of your product/brand, not the features. Simple, but so often advertisers fall into this trap
6. Don’t cut corners on the creative & production for all of the above reasons
7. The production values and tone of voice should reflect your brand proposition and appeal to your target audience. Simple, but often overlooked
8. Make sure you have a media agency that fully understands the intricacies and complexities of planning and buying a TV campaign. We’ve seen great TV creative not work effectively because of under-optimised and/or poorly planned media. We can help you with all aspects of TV media planning & buying
9. Work with a TV Production company that aren’t prima donnas and really know their stuff and can help you through the sometimes stressful Clearcast process. Remember it’s all in the creative. The Living Room, dare we say can offer you a professional, highly creative and cost effective script to screen TV Creative Production service – and we aren’t prima donnas, honest!
10. Go for it! A well planned and resourced TV campaign could work wonders for your brand. Remember, it’s still the most powerful media channel out here

Oh, and don’t forget Pavlov’s Dog!

By the way, ask your TV Production company or agency what they think of Pavlov’s work and its implications for advertising. If they can’t answer, or worse still, haven’t heard of Pavlov, then we’d suggest it may be time to look around for a new partner for your TV campaigns!

Next time we’ll discuss the work of Maslow and its significant impact on TV advertising.

For further information, please contact gary@livingroom-uk.com