Creative cure

TV advertising can get a bit stale sometimes. Many businesses make the mistake of thinking that content is the only place for creativity. But it shouldn’t stop there. There’s length, format, placement, stations, programs, time slots, frequency of rotation and much more to consider. All it takes is some ‘outside the box’ thinking…

The length of your ad doesn’t have to be confined to 30 seconds. Sometimes 30 seconds is perfect. But sometimes it’s not. I encourage you to think not how you can squeeze your concept into 30 seconds, but how your format can adjust to fit your concept.

Another option is 15 seconds – a cost effective way to communicate a simple message, but not so effective for complicated concepts. Again, don’t try and squeeze your concept into a short ad to keep the costs down. You’ll just confuse you customers or create information overload. Think of how you can split up the messages between a series of ads, or increase the length.

Then there’s your longer formats – 60 seconds, 90 seconds, and even 120 seconds. If you have a story to tell, tell it! Exchange some of your budget for potency and make a real impact.

How about 3 x 10 second ads, appearing 1st, middle and last of an ad break? Dominos did this recently to promote their new ‘pasta bowl’ product (aka man creating a snow angel in basil). What a better way to create intrigue and tease consumers, revealing something new in each 10 second instalment?

There’s also some different placement strategies that can help to
inject creativity:

There’s the famous top and tail approach – booking the first and last ads in ad break. This is really effective when you have multiple messages to communicate, and the concept relies on consumers being able to make the connection between your ads.

Another approach is roadblocking. Instead of spreading your activity out, lump it onto one time slot, night, week, or month (whatever your budget permits) and buy every channel your target market could possibly
be watching.

Then there’s flighting – spreading your activity between heavy, medium and light, or spotting it here and there according to your sales cycles. It maximises your budget and also reduces media ‘wastage’.

There’s many, many more strategies you can apply to achieve cost effective, impacting advertising solutions. I could spend weeks writing them all down. So if you’d like some more ideas, contact me!