We’re obviously not neutral on this subject, because making TV adverts is what we do and we’d be delighted if you chose us. We’ve also been doing it long enough to know what separates a good experience from a bad one, and most of it comes down to questions that are worth asking whoever you speak to, including us.
You need the questions because production companies are hard to tell apart from the outside. Everybody’s showreel looks good, and the things that will make the difference to you, such as how the job is run and what the price covers, never appear in a showreel at all.
Have they made adverts that have actually been on TV?
Plenty of companies make good-looking video. Fewer have taken an advert all the way through clearance and delivery to a broadcaster, and the two are different jobs. A TV advert has to meet technical standards, get through Clearcast, pass the test for flashing images, carry subtitles and be delivered in the right format, and none of that is asked of a video made for a website. A company that hasn’t done it before will be learning at your expense, and the lessons tend to arrive at the worst moment, when the airtime is booked and the advert has come back needing changes.
So ask to see adverts that have been broadcast, and ask where they ran. It’s fair to ask what the company’s part in each one was as well, because a showreel doesn’t tell you who came up with the idea, who wrote the script and who was hired to film it. Our own work is a fair example, because on Metrocentre’s Christmas advert the concept came from their agency, AL Marketing, and our job was to make it happen. For PC Specialist we worked with their agency, Forward & Thinking, and looked after the advert from the brief and the script right through to production. Any company should be able to tell you the same about the work it shows you.
Do they ask about your business before they talk about ideas?
Broadcast experience tells you that a company can do the job, and the first conversation tells you a lot about how they’ll go about it. Be wary of anyone who arrives with a concept before they’ve understood what you’re trying to achieve. The first conversation should be mostly questions: who your customers are, what you want them to do and what’s stopping them. We’ve set those out in how to write a brief for a TV ad. An idea that turns up before those questions have been asked might be a clever one, but it can only be a guess at what your business needs.
Expect to be asked where the advert is going to be shown and what the overall budget looks like, too. That can feel like being sized up, but a company that doesn’t know the budget can’t propose something that could be made within it, and it’s kinder to find that out at the start than after you’ve fallen for an idea you can’t afford.
Will you see it before you pay for it?
Once they understand the job, you should know what you’re getting before the shoot. That means a script and a storyboard that you’ve approved, and ideally a script that Clearcast has already looked at, so that a problem with a claim or an offer comes to light while it’s still words on a page. Nobody should be asking you to commit to a production on the strength of a conversation, because a conversation leaves each of you with a slightly different advert in your head, and you only find out how different when the footage comes back. A storyboard puts the same advert in front of everybody, which is why we always start with one.
Companies differ on when you start paying for that thinking. We’ll draw up a storyboard free of charge before you’ve committed to anything, and others charge for the development work, which is a perfectly reasonable way to run a business. What matters is that you know which it is before anybody starts.
Is the price clear about what’s included?
When the quotes arrive, two that look very different are often not for the same thing. One company might have priced the shoot and the edit, and another everything it takes to get the advert on air, so the first looks like a bargain until the missing items are added back. Ask whether the price includes:
- script and storyboard
- casting, locations and crew
- music and voiceover, and for how long they’re licensed
- Clearcast clearance
- subtitles
- delivery to the broadcaster
- shorter versions, or versions for social media
- a set number of rounds of changes
Licensing is the one that catches people out. Performers, voiceovers and music are usually licensed for a period of time and a set of uses, so an advert might be covered for television but not for your social media channels. If that isn’t spelled out, you can find yourself paying again a year later. Ask in the same breath who owns the footage once the job is finished, and what it would take to update the advert when the offer or the phone number changes, because both are much easier to agree before the work is done than after.
Who handles the airtime?
The quotes are also a good moment to ask about airtime, because making the advert and buying the airtime are separate skills. Some companies do both, some do one, and either can work. What matters is that somebody is thinking about where the advert will run while it’s being made, because the two affect each other. The length of the advert, whether you’ll need shorter versions of it and the date the finished advert has to reach the broadcasters all come out of the airtime plan, and a production company working without one can make you an excellent advert that doesn’t fit what’s been booked.
If you already have a media buyer, ask how the production company would work with them, and if you haven’t, ask who’d be doing the buying. In our case we regularly work alongside clients’ own agencies and media buyers, and when a client doesn’t have one, the airtime is planned and bought through our media buying partners. We’ve explained that approach in why use a media buyer?
Do they understand the rules in your sector?
The other kind of specialist knowledge to ask about is your own sector’s rules. Finance, legal services, healthcare, food and gambling all have extra ones, on top of those every advert has to follow. Someone who’s worked in your sector will know what you can and can’t say, and will save you a lot of rewriting. A good way to test it is to tell them the main claim you’d like to make and ask what they’d need from you to support it. A company that clears adverts regularly will start talking about evidence straight away.
Will they tell you when you’re wrong?
Being asked for evidence when you’d hoped for a yes is a small example of the last thing to look for. You’re paying for experience, and that includes being told when an idea won’t work, an offer won’t clear or thirty seconds won’t hold everything you want to say. A company that agrees with everything isn’t doing its job, and you can usually tell which kind you’re dealing with in the first meeting, by mentioning something you suspect is too much for one advert and seeing whether they nod or say so.
It matters most of all on results, because nobody can honestly guarantee what an advert will do for your sales. That depends on the offer, the airtime and the business behind it as much as on the advert, so a company that promises a figure is only telling you what you’d like to hear.
Warning signs
Put together, the things that should make you hesitate are these:
- A price given before anyone has asked what you want to achieve
- Promised results or guaranteed sales
- No mention of Clearcast or licensing
- Vague answers about who owns the footage and for how long
- No broadcast work to show you
Distance needn’t be on that list, because a production company doesn’t have to be on your doorstep. The shoot happens wherever the advert needs it to, and we’re based in Gateshead and work with clients across the UK.
And about us
We’ve been making TV adverts for more than twenty years, and our team won Best Commercial at the Royal Television Society Awards. You can look at our work, read about how we work, and ask us any of the questions above. We’d encourage you to put the same questions to one or two other companies and compare what comes back, because the answers will tell you more than anybody’s showreel. If you’d like to see what we’d do for you before you commit to anything, ask for a free storyboard.