Getting into Advertising

[Matty2phatty]

I'm just wondering if anybody in this forum does any advertisements through their company. And if so, how'd you get your first ones?

Did you advertise your company as a production studio for doing advertisements?

Or did you do the ads beforehand and then approach the companies with a final product to sell them?

And lastly, was it your job to organise the television networks to air the ads, or was that up to the client?

[miker]

Sorry, I don't have any constructive advice on how one actually becomes a media whore, but this excerpt from an instructional video may help:

Truth in Advertising

;-)

[Nigel]

Are you asking ecause you want to start advertising your business or you want to start making adevrtisments??

If you want to show off your business--Then make an ad and buy media space.

If you want to start making ads then that is a whole new can of worms. The best way is to have a friend that is already a Producer at an agency. Otherwise start by getting in the back of the line and have a killer reel.

A friend of mine is a producer and she gets me a few gigs. However, it is hard for her to justify me because I made the mistake of having a reel that is to heavy on narrative and not enough spot work.

Good Luck

[Matty2phatty]

Yeah i was thinking about making ads as something of a side project, as i don't want to find myself 10 years down the track still doing it. So how does this producer thing work? When companies need ads who do they go to?

And thanks for the vid Miker [img]wink.gif[/img]

[Nigel]

You don't "Try" Ads as a side...

Getting good gigs in ads is just as harder or harder than landing a good gig in Hollywood. The "Producer Thing" works by knowing them.

If you want to take your DV camcorder out there and shoot Joe-Schmo Used Car Salesman then hey you are already half way there.

Good Luck

[Chance1234]

Drink in the blue post pub on kingly street in soho.

from what i know about the industry is it all becomes part of a package, ie coca cola for argumetns sake go to Flog It Ad Agency and the agency come up with a whole image and campaign, They then run that campaign and organise everything, at the heart of this is the creative team who make all the decisions.

A lot of advertisment shoots are done by agency crew. the storyboards have already been done by the creative team and there just looking for people to come in and out the door to shoot it in the quickest time possible , then of course they have their contacts of people they reguarly use. Friend of mine Ad's quite a bit on adverts and gets called quite a bit.

[Generic Skinhead]

Don't sell out before you even get started.

[Matty2phatty]

i should probably elaborate.. i don't want to just 'try' ads, as if it were something with no thought put into it.

The companies i'm interested in doing are mostly just local companies in my city, so i'm not sure they'd quite be on the same level as Nike, Coke etc...

I didn't mean to come across like some guy just wanting to shoot something with his home camera, i just don't understand the process from the business side.

[miker]

Advertising is essentially a glamourised service industry. You just need to meet people and give them your reel and business card and give them reasons why you are suited to doing their next advert for them.

Note that in advertising the rule of thumb is 2% response - not sales, just response.

So your mailshot or party needs to be huuuuuge to have any hope of getting work.

[Matty2phatty]

i guess that's kind of how i imagined it might be... just letting people know i'm out there.

I guess the main thing i was thinking was that i have some great ideas for advertisements, but wasn't sure if it's just not acceptable to go shoot it and then offer it to a company.