Convincing Clients

[HowdyDoo]

I work as regional director, contracted to make commercials for both small and medium sized ad agencies. I am not involved in the initial conceptions of the ad campaigns i work on and i am not involved in the script writing.

My questions is this:

It seems a trend in the LOCAL commercial market is to make bland, uninteresting commercials, overly saturated with information, and without any entertaining elements what-so-ever.

What are some techniques to convince clients or ad agencies to take risks and push the envelope? With every commercial I make, the committee notes I receive almost always strip the commercial of all originality or any redeeming qualities it may have had. They become just another commercial to ignore.

When I see commercials like GEICO's current campaign (with Esteban, etc.), I instantly become jealous because they were ALLOWED to be creative! They were allowed to take risks.

I know each job is different, and clients vary, but surely there are some business tips out there to help in persuading executives to take chances on their marketing campaigns.

 

[myfriendimage]

I think it would vary upon client. But I would show a similiar commercial to their's and ask them if they were flipping through the channels would they honestly care if they saw that commercial? Mabye it will drive the boring realization home.

 

[Flash]

Well you could talk about it being a psycological fact that consumers are more likely to take action on something that moves them or makes them feel like they're part of something special or elevates their status. And that it's more effective to make a strong impression on fewer people than no impression on everyone. Zero times 100 is still zero.

I get frustrated with it too, and call it LCD (lowest common denominator) marketing. Unfortunately they'd rather spend their :30 maximizing information than creating a singular impression, which is far more valuable over time. The big guys spend most of their ad efforts creating and developing brand identities rather than selling product. Most local spots are one-offs, not campaigns. Short-sighted. I used to write a lot of these for a small agency, with more specialized clients, but it was still pretty much the same story. Radio was far more interesting, but I grew tired of being poor.

 

[Barry_Green]

Local commercials don't want anything to do with that. Local commercials are all about "sale this weekend -- sale sale sale! Call this number, or come to this intersection -- sale sale sale."

Local commercials are pretty much all about direct response. Cable TV reps go in and sell 'em on the concept of doing a spot and risking some ad dollars, and the client expects to see immediate response. If the phone doesn't start ringing, that's the last time that advertiser will waste his money on TV. So local ads are all about pushing the phone number over and over and over...