Local Commercial Work

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ItsJanosz

Active member
Hey All,

I know many of you have experience with this, so thought I'd see if anyone can offer any tips.
My company just got back from shooting a feature, and we'd like to move into shooting local commercials. We have a modest production set-up, and are all experienced film school grads.
My questions are along these lines....
How does one go about advertising for this sort of thing? What sorts of methods have worked best for you guys?
What is the standard rate people are charging for local television commercials?
Anything special we might need to consider?
Thanks!
 
You make friends with an ad agency. Any business seriously looking at commercial production
does not connect directly with a videographer. They will go to an ad agency who will do a
creative proposal or treatment and sub-contract actual production to your company.

So, the easiest way to get any level of work worth messing with is through an agency.
There are lots of opportunities outside of an ad agency but generally are clients who cannot
afford your services to begin with, are clueless and difficult to work with, or they know better
and have chosen to stay cheap. You could advertise your service by a yellow pages ad or even
shooting a commercial and putting it on tv, but I think making contacts with agency folks is
the way to go. Cold faxing is rarely a successful tactic in developing contacts, but may be
worth a shot if you're starting cold turkey. Just consider agencies are professionals who
come up with ideas and sell them. As a production company, our role is to assist in seeing
those ideas to fruition and not really help out with new ideas. This is the nature of the biz.

If you wish to bunk all of this, approach the discount dentists who cater to primarily lower level, new, thrifty,
high turnover clients. These make for excellent direct response television spots. Even done cheesy, it
works. Dentists who cater to medium or higher level clients are unsuccessful on television.

Hoping this will be useful,
brian wells
 
Actually, there are plenty of us WEAV members who market TV commercials directly to businesses. And do quite well with them. Hook up with your local cable ad rep. Go door to door to businesses. Car dealerships, jewlers, etc. My company does TV stuff more and more. And no, we never deal with an ad agency. Email me direct and I can get you some very helpful info.

But in my, and many other videographers experiences, you can do TV commercials quite well, make a good profit, and never deal with an ad agency. Although an ad agency who is willing to farm out the production work (and most don't, they have in-house crap set-ups) would be nice to find.
 
i think that cold calling on businesses can be effective but it will be tedious and you big money wont be there. I owned a few reatil stores(under $1 million in sales) and i was cold called by radio and tv which i did both. I felt i was too small to get an egency but i still wanted the radio and tv exposure. Granted you wouldnt have gotten rich off my ads but you may have made some money and you could have had the opportunity to create more than the local cable co was. This in turn woudl have gotten you access to some of those agencies that wont talk to you until you are proven.

Another idea is to target a market(lawyers, dentists, daycares etc or go where companies are that are clearly intent on advertoising. I use my local home and patio shows to market to for certain things. You could use that or a bridal show or whatever. when yo go to a home and patio show for example every booth is paid for by the company and they take a few days away from their business to man the booth. Obviously they want to market their products. Go to the show with your business cards and your sales pitch and hit them up. The other thing is to look for the local advertsing magazine. we have one called the paper mint. its a 4color magazine on glossy paper which is just page after page of ads. Alot of them are subway, dominoes etc. but then you have local restaurants, carper cleaners, transmission shops. again these copmapnies have proven they are willing to pay for advertsing. in the publicastions that means hundreds or dollars. now you have a lead sheet. hoeps some of these ideas makes sense.
 
How do you make money in commercials when the local Cable CO. charges $100 for a thirty second spot? BTW, their quality isn't bad...not network quality, but quite passable. Had a friend's company get his commercial done thru them for $500, with action graphics, two camera set-up, sound pro recording, etc. Won some regioanl award for the producer. $500! I take it no one else has to compete with that?
 
Jacques,

Yes, video guys in Texas compete with that. Only in Amarillo where I live, it is much worse.
A cable company or local broadcast affiliate will shoot a direct response ad for $150-$200.

To have a successful enterprise in commercial production, you really have to set yourself
apart in the market. You make your on camera female talent look beautiful. Cable doesn't.
You take time and care in every aspect of production that cable doesn't. You learn tricks.

The local advertisments in my town are shot on ancient cameras by students who are
compensated around $6.00/Hour for their time. They are done in haste with zero value.

So you set yourself apart--you connect with an ad agency who is working with clients who
are looking for something more, something better--and are willing to pay for better.

There are plenty of lowbill opportunities, but you have to ask yourself what kind of work
do you want to do. For me, the answer was stuff that looks awesome and brings
in more high caliber work. So, I don't do much advertising and I am fine with that.

The people I know who do well in commercial production only work with an ad agency.

brian wells
 
The one fact that most people dont realize that the cable company does not want to do the commercial in th first place. They will of course do it but they really want to make their moneu by selling available commercial space. So normally when you hear about the cable co shooting for low or even no money its in exchange for X amnount of air time being purchased by the client. For example if Momma Mias Pizza were to commit to buying $1000 a month of commercial space for a 6 month period, but didnt have a commercial they would be happy to charge Momma 500 to make the commercial. however if Momma said she only wants to run 2 ads a week during a jerry springer reruns at 1am (about $10 a spot) then they would not even want to deal with her nor would they cut her a commercial for 500. HOWEVER, if any of us were to approach the same client and say look i know the cable co doesnt want to do your spots for you but i will. I will charge you 700 and you can buy from me 1 or 1000 spots. Then the client has a choice. (A) $6000 commitment with the cable co or (B) a 700 commitment with me and no long term commitment on the # of spots purchased.

Now what you do is contact your local cable co and find out what discount you get for being an agency. If you call yourself and agency you are an agency. My city is 15%. Now say I agree to buy $1500 a month worth of air time(cost me $1275 because of my agency discount) from local cable co as an agency. I can now go out to say 3 different local businesses, Momma Mias, Mr mechanic and Bettys bakery. i sell all of them a 700 commercial, i also sell all of them $500 worth of advertisng. Thats half of what they had to commit to the cabel co. So now i have 3x700= 2100 plus 3x500= 1500 or a total of 3600 and my airtime costs is 1275. This gives me 3600-1275= 2325 out of the 2325 i have to remove my costs of production but thats a variable that will change from person to person.

Ok so that is how it CAN work. al of those numbers are variables but the strategy si the same. if you think you can sell enough air time to cover your commitment to the cable co then you can get all the commercial work you want. However be aware that the smaller co's will not be able to buy large chunks of advertising. But They woudl be happier giving you a commitment for 3 months at 500 than the cable co's request for 6 months at 1000.

hope this gives you something to think about
 
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