Follow these 5 steps to learn how to make a TV Advert
Do you know how to make a tv advert? Probably not, and that’s okay. So this is where we enter the scene. We are Impress Video, a video production company with many years of experience. This experience has led us to know in detail how to make a TV Advert, among many other types of videos. Don’t miss this blog, as here we’ll teach you how to produce a TV commercial and walk you through the steps.
A TV ad can be produced by companies of all sizes and the advantage is their reach to committed target audiences who religiously watch TV at set times. There could be a number of reasons for doing so such as:
- You want to attract a wider audience
- You have the capital to do so
- Add prestige and power to your brand
- You’ve always advertised on TV
- You want to see the ROI of TV advertisements
And finally, the list is here. Here you have the five steps to making a television advertisement.
Step 1: the Creative Idea for your TV Advert
Whatever it is your main reason why you want to create advertising for TV, you will need to have bold, creative and most importantly, impressive ideas.
But are you stuck or don’t know where to start? Don’t worry, here we share with you a fantastic guide on how to be more creative, by the VeryWellMind. Have you tried everything possible and you are not coming up with an idea? Try contacting a TV production company to present a few ideas to you.
Step 2: What angle will you take with your TV Advert?
There are a few approaches that have proved effective when advertising such as:
- Humour
- Emotional (pulling at heartstrings – charities)
- Factual (think toothpaste ads)
- Attention grabbing (think action)
- Hard hitting
Make sure your advert is made with the right message and audience in mind. At the same time, try to make it fit a 30 seconds time slot.
Moreover, when creating your advert, have in mind that you need to be following today’s trends, so that you can get the most out of your commercial.
Step 3: Clearcast and Clearance
Once you have your advert idea signed off, either created by yourself or by a tv advert company. You will have to make sure it is ‘TV ready’.
By this we mean that you will have to contact Clearcast.
But what is Clearcast? It is an independent TV advertising agency, whose key purpose is to ensure a TV ad is right for TV broadcast, this mean the TV advert is not misleading nor making any false claims, it’s ethical and furthermore suitable for the public to view.
Clearcast have strict guidelines and you might want to add some leeway time in having your advert approved. At the same time, it encourages you to have your script signed off first, which makes sense as if you end up spending £20,000+ on your advert, you do not want to have to go back to the drawing board because it is not TV worthy.
It’s a simple process really, first you have your script and treatment signed off (on screen visuals), then you film it and then have the final TV advert signed off.
Step 4: The Production Process
After the TV advert goes through the key stages of development:
- Script approval – Clearcast
- Treatment approval – Clearcast
- Producing
- Casting
- Filmed
- Edited
- TV Advert approval – Clearcast
You will now want to collaborate with a TV distribution service like Peach Video. This agency will request the advert to be in a specific TV format which will be approved by most broadcasters such as BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and SKY.
Step 5: Broadcast rates
Once the TV advert has been edited and exported to the right format the distribution company such as Peach Video will check the rates for playing your advert any particular times during the day and by region. For example your TV advert will cast significantly different to air at 11am in the morning, when the public is generally at work compared to 7:30pm when the public are typically watching TV with the family.
Our latest client had a budget of £80,000 to spend on TV broadcast. That’s why our client decided to advertise their commercial during some key months in 2019 and some other even weeks. But each company is a different story. You will need to find out what suits you better.
Our final tips:
If you are thinking about producing a tv advert for your company, do consider the following which will have your prepared well for making a big investment:
- Ask to have a digital package produced too: this will mean you have the advert in different formats and lengths for your social media channels and online marketing. I can stress this enough
- Request ALL the digital files: this means you will have all the elements from the tv advert and ask for individual elements. What we mean by this is for example, a new client wanted to change some of the wording in his voice over. The client paid a small fee to request the music file as the one that was in the advert already had the voice over embedded over it. Having all the individual files, such as audio, voice over, sound effects etc in separate audio tracks along with text overlays and logos will give you much flexibility in the long run.
Contact Impress Video now
If you would like to do a TV Advert with video production and marketing professionals, or any other type of video, we can help you at Impress Video. We make video production for businesses, the ones that impress. Don’t hesitate to contact us here!
This blog was published on 11 December 2019, but for understandability and update purposes, this was updated on 10 October 2022.
