What you need to ask TV advertising companies before you make your advert

Everyone thinks they can make a better tv advert and will critique the ads they see on TV. In reality, when looking at how to make a tv advert there is a lot of planning, and tv advertising companies can help you get a great campaign going. But, there are a so many agencies around and you will want to make sure that your money is well spent. There are a few questions that you can ask and things that are worth considering before signing anything.
Direct Response
Before embarking on an advertising campaign, you will need to find a tv advertising company that understands what you want and who has experience with direct response tv. Direct response TV simply means that the TV advert is constructed in such a way as to evoke a direct response from the viewer or listener. Find an agency that has experience in this area and get a greater return on your investment. TV adverts are not cheap, so you want to make sure that the money spent on the advert is going to produce results.

Media Planning
After the direct response discussion, ask if the agency has experience in media planning. This simply means which media is the best one to use, and if it is TV or internet or perhaps other mediums to support the project could include radio and bill boards. Any TV advertising agency should be able to give you some direction as to the best way to get the message across.

The message
And that leads to the next question you need to ask the agency. What is the message or what is the desired outcome? Are you looking to increase sales straight away, increase brand awareness, promote a new service of product or perhaps the advert is a public service announcement.

Costs and time
The next discussion you should have with any agency before deciding anything is what are the likely costs and what is the time frame, from conception to production to airtime. It may be hard at this initial stage to give an exact price or time frame, as this will need to be discussed in more detail as the planning takes shape. However a ball park number can be talked about so that a budget can be drafted.

The Agency
It does not hurt to also ask some questions about the agency itself. Who are the staff, how long have they been there and what experience do they have? Also ask how long the company has been in existence for and who their previous clients are. If they have done similar projects in the past, they will be able to identify your objectives much easier.

Concept Ideas
Also, ask the agency what they think of your TV advert ideas and what would they do differently? You may have strong opinions or none at all about what you want the ad to look like but the ad agency may have very different ideas to you. Sometimes this comes down to individual opinion, and other times it may come down to proven research and hard evidence. It is important to know the difference and know what will work with your campaign.

Opportunities for change
Another good discussion to have is what are the opportunities to re run the advert again in the future. Is this just a one off campaign, or are you likely to want to make mire adverts in the future, change the exiting one or start completely from scratch. You need to ask how the rights work to the ad and if the ad can be changed in time.

Viewing figures
Finally, ask what the monitoring and reporting involves. Are you just going to create an advert, put it to air and hope for the best, or are you going to get viewing figures and direct response numbers?
So, as you can see there are many factors when looking at how to make a tv advert, and tv advertising companies are the ones you should be talking to, especially if you want direct response tvadverts. To avoid costly mistakes or badly executed adverts, speak to a few ad agencies, ask around and choose one that understands you and your business.