Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
How Collaboration Creates Successful Ad Campaigns
There is so much more work than meets the eye when it comes to creating a TV commercial. The end product may be 30 seconds, but months of work, and dozens of people contribute to its successful execution.
As the 20/20 Visual Media team is preparing to begin production on another national TV commercial with our client CertaPro Painters, we wanted to give you a glimpse at the many layers that go into creating the spots.
None of our productions are just “show up and shoot”, but in particular, when we’re working on a national ad, the level of collaboration takes a step up. Ad agencies, creative directors, casting agencies, location owners, actors, members of our production company, and of course the client themselves, all play significant roles in making these spots happen. So how does it get started?
Step 1 - The Relationship
Building a relationship of professionalism, trust, and friendship with the client is always where successful campaigns have to start. If you don’t have faith in the other parties’ ability to contribute great ideas, new techniques, innovations or trends in brand marketing, you won’t have a solid foundation for success.
Step 2 - The Concept
Usually what comes next is a meeting with the client and the ad agency. In our upcoming production for CertaPro Painters, we’re working with the client and their agency out of New York City, Merkley + Partners. The team of creatives at Merkley assisted CertaPro with their campaign concept, “The Power of Pro”, the scripting for three different 30-second TV spots, and the creation of the visual mood boards. The concept was shared with us during a production kickoff call, and then production was off and running.
Step 3 - The Planning
For most productions, the more work you can do before the shoot, the better the shoot will go. On a commercial production like this one, that’s even more true. There are so many questions that have to be answered before you can film: what locations will you use, how many crew members are needed, are you casting actors, who is doing the art design, and so much more. And for this particular project, we’re working with real homeowners who are getting real painting transformations done. So there’s an additional layer of working with the homeowners, getting permission to film, coordinating with the local franchise owner who is doing the job, and working with the painting crew who will be on site the days that we’ll be filming. It’s an undertaking that takes a lot of effort and teamwork.
The production crew, actors, locations, creative director, and client all have to come together to make a successful commercial shoot happen.
Step 4 - The Casting
One of the benefits of working with real paint crews is that part of the casting is done for us. We’re highlighting the painting crew as the “heroes” of the job. They’re the ones bringing their expertise, professionalism, and care to each job that they take on, and that’s exactly what we’re looking to communicate in the “Power of Pro” spots. But we are in the process of supplementing the real crews with talent who will represent the paying customers.
We work closely with both the client and casting agencies to help bring that part of the project to life. We determine the personas and demographics of the actors (that could be anything from age range, gender, ethnicity, to real life families, and more). Then we communicate those desires with the casting agent, who puts out a call for an audition. After the auditions, we put our heads together with the client to choose the actors who best fit the spots that are being produced.
Step 5 - The Scheduling
You’d think one of the easiest parts of a job would be finding a date on the calendar and saying, “ok, let’s book it!”, but the reality is, when you have so many people and moving parts involved, it can sometimes be one of the trickiest.
What we’ve found is that valuing and providing flexibility really helps when you’re trying to coordinate the schedules of the production crew, the creative agency team, the client, the home owners, the actors, the locations, and so on. You never know when someone is going to get sick, or when Mother Nature is going to rain on your parade (or home exterior shoot).
Step 6 - The Shoot
It’s where the rubber meets the road. The weeks or months of planning come down to, in this case, about four days of filming to produce three 30-second spots. Why so many days? Because there are a variety of locations and customer experiences that need to be captured to tell the full brand story. There are interiors and exteriors of homes, interiors and exteriors of office buildings and complexes, and a number of different customer journeys that will be documented. The customers will go from initial feelings of angst to relief, as they watch their locations transform from uninspired to refreshed. Each shot will take approximately an hour to set and light, and we’ll work through a number of takes with the actors and painters to make sure we capture the emotions associated with watching their home or office undergo a much needed renovation.
Step 7 - The Edit
After we’ve gathered all of the materials needed to tell the visual story, that’s when our Post-Production Supervisor, Christina Betz, takes over. She will make sense of the footage that was captured, compare it with the storyboard and shot lists that were put together before the shoot began, and then start to put the pieces of the puzzle together to get the spots completed. But even this is a collaborative process. Because Christina is not usually on set for the productions, she relies on communicating with the Producer and Director of Photography to ensure that their creative vision makes it into the final piece. Sometimes when you’re on set, you see a “moment” that you want captured, even if it may not have originally been intended, that makes the final product even better. But the only way Christina would know that is if the edit is collaborative. And then of course, there are review sessions with the client. They have the ultimate sign off on the product that will best represent them across the country for the year to come.
So How Does This All Happen?
The moral of the story is: these projects come down to trust. If you don’t have a solid relationship and trust between the client, the creative agency, and the production company, there’s no chance you walk away with a good commercial. The client puts a lot of faith into their vendors, not only to come up with a concept that will resonate with an audience, but also to know how to secure locations, cast actors, light, shoot, edit, and deliver. Communication is always key, no matter the size or scope of your project. But a successful campaign all starts and ends with trust.
At 20/20 Visual Media, we work very hard to establish that trust from the very first phone call, and then continue to prove ourselves throughout the entire production, to make sure that each client gets exactly what they expected.
