What Makes A TV Commercial Memorable And Effective?

Before I get to the point of my article, if you want to argue the point that TV advertising is dead and TV in general is dead and we’ll all be walking around on moving sidewalks like the Jetsons in the next 5-10 years, fine. Just leave your thoughts in the comment section and I will respond in kind with a reply which essentially says “you’re out of your mind.”

Ok, now that we have that out of the way.

A few years ago I posed the following query: What makes a TV commercial memorable? And follow up question, is it the product you remember or just the commercial itself?

I was very curious to see what people thought when they saw a given TV commercial. Did they remember the spot itself? Did they remember the brand? Both? Kind of goes without saying that if you’re a brand manager or brand marketer or advertiser, etc. if given the choice you would rather people remember your brand or product, right?

I received quite a number of replies to my query and I want to share some of them with you and I also want to see, based on your comments, if you think anything has changed in the years since I first asked the question.

Some findings:

• Humor was definitely the most-oft used word to describe what makes a commercial memorable.
• Other words that came up a lot were “tagline” and “jingle”
• Many mentioned the use of an iconic-type character as being an integral part of making a commercial stand out from the pack.

• Another person took it a step further and delved deeper into the heart of the advertising matter (BTW, this is a great, GREAT point): ”Advertising, especially TV commercials can get customers in the door only one time. After that, it’s up the seller to build trust and loyalty.”

The last comment ties in perfectly by the way with someone I wrote last year entitled “Social Media’s Dirty Little Secret” which essentially said the same thing only in the context of social media. Doesn’t matter how good you are at social media and/or advertising and marketing. What gets people coming back and becoming loyal customers is a) a quality product, service or ware and b) sold at a good price.

Here’s some of the answers I received in their entirety:

• “Heart and or Humor. One that tickles the funny bone, makes you laugh out loud and call a person in the other room … “Hey, you’ve gotta come see this commercial …” On the flip side, one that pulls at the heart strings, or even at times rips the heart right out of your chest with power, energy or fear, causing you to pause and think. Makes you say “wow!” They only come along so often. Product is not always the most memorable part – think of how many times you’ve said, “I saw this great commercial, don’t remember exactly what it was for, but …” I seem to remember product on the powerful serious spots – less so on the funny commercials where sometimes the punchline over powers product.”

• “It is best done with an icon, a grabbing tag line, a memorable jingle, and humor, with the icon and the brand tied together…Examples: “Energizer Bunny” or “Tony the Tiger” for Kellogg cereal. To stand out and become memorable, it must be unconventional. The conventional is boring, and immediately forgotten, because it never engages the consumer.”
• “If you don’t remember the product or service, the ad is a failure. The ad should address a need, demonstrate how the product or service meets the need, and do it in a compelling, memorable way, with a device known as a hook. 25 years after it ran, people still remember Wendy’s “Where’s the beef?” ad. It is a great example of saying, “Wendy’s burgers are so big, they stick out from the bun. The other guys’ burgers are so small, you have to look for the patty!” Beautiful. Dang. Now I’m hungry for a Wendy’s burger.”
• “Generally for me, a TV spot has to score high in 2 areas to be memorable: sheer entertainment value and disruption/thought-provoking ability. That second category covers those few ingenious spots every year that go completely against the settled order of things to really achieve something different. As for whether I remember the product or just the commercial itself, that varies. But I bet you a dollar to a donut that those of us in the biz latch on to the sponsor probably five times more often than the average viewing Joe or Jane — so if we’re inconsistent in our recall, imagine how they do on that score.”
• “Commercials that portray people getting hurt are most memorable, i.e. falling off the ladder, walking into the glass door, the football player hitting office workers. Interestingly, I can’t say for certain which products they were pitching.”

Getting hurt, falling you say? You mean like this one that’s currently running for Sears?

By the way I love this spot for Sears. I love how it starts off one way then very quickly and quite humorously takes you in another direction. And no, it did not cause me to go buy an appliance from Sears but I did remember that it was for Sears in the first place.

More replies:

• “It’s just the commercial people remember. Many people (myself included) sometimes refer to the bunny as the Eveready Bunny. Don’ think that’s what the Energizer people want.”

• “Stupid commercials are the most memorable, followed by funny ones. I tend to remember a commercial first then the product.”

• “I produced commercials for ESPN for a few years. My experience as a producer and as a consumer tells me it’s the commercial.”

• “A human truth engagingly presented. Most TV commercials are not effective because either 

  a.The writer would rather be in Hollywood or

  b.The client thinks the world is fascinated by his brand.

Author: Steve Olenski

Source: Article

The Best Practices for Color Grading Commercials

Color grading is an art form that can take years to master. I have been doing it professionally for four years now and I’m still learning new techniques every day and developing my skill set as much as I ever have. This is largely thanks to the fact that I now work on such a wide variety of projects that all call for such different looks. But with all that I have learned over the years, some of the most important lessons have come from color grading commercials.

Oddly enough, commercials often require the most amount of color grading even if the source footage looks beautiful to begin with. To put this in perspective, consider what would be required to color grade a feature length narrative film.

Often there is a short timeline (maybe a few weeks) to color grade hundreds or thousands of shots, and artistically there is a lot of freedom in terms of where things can go. This means that in many cases the rules are easier to break when coloring a feature (within reason)  and each shot gets less attention than a commercial, since there are so many other shots that you need to get to.

Commercials are the exact opposite. A 30 second commercial may only consist of a dozen or so shots, but can still take a couple of days to grade. This is because: A) Commercial budgets can usually afford more time in the color suite, and B) More specific grading often needs to be done.

So when you break down how much time is actually being spent on any given shot, a commercial project will always have a much greater number than a feature film. Commercials can be one of the hardest types of projects to grade for this reason, and in order to achieve great results, you need to be aware of some key fundamentals.

So for those out there that do a lot of commercial work, the tips below are for you. Please know that there are of course exceptions to every rule, and these tips certainly do not apply to every single commercial. That said, they will be relevant for the majority of commercial spots you might be working on.

1. It’s All in the Midtones

As far as color is concerned, commercials are all about the midtones. This is especially true of commercials that feature talent and aren’t simply a montage of product shots. In a narrative film, it’s perfectly okay (or in some cases even encouraged) to place mid tones/skin tones in a unique place.

For instance, you might be creating a really moody scene and want your actor’s faces to be underexposed, and you might achieve that by bringing down your midtones significantly… But on a commercial project you would almost never do this.

Commercials almost always benefit most from accurate, neutral, and pleasing midtones that are a touch on the bright side. Since the talent in any given commercial is essentially there to sell a product (even if the commercial isn’t pitchy), their appearance needs to be inviting and attractive, and the first step in achieving that look is by color correcting the mid tones in a way that brings up your talent’s skin to an optimal point.

2. Use Power Windows

Most commercial projects use far more power windows than their feature film counterparts. This isn’t because the commercials need to be more stylized (more on that below), but rather because details are extremely important in any commercial project.

For example, the color of a can of soda might need to be keyed and windowed to match exactly with the actual color approved by the brand or agency. Also, certain elements of people, products, or environments may need to be highlighted or brought down in order to draw the viewer’s attention to the right place.

There is so little time to tell a story in a commercial, and the format is so highly visual that every last detail and shot becomes very important. Power windows are one of the best tools that you can use to achieve these results, but you always want to make sure to use them within reason. You don’t want your final product to look like it has windows all over it… It needs to look and feel natural, and just accentuate the most important parts of the frame without getting distracting.

Here’s a video from F-Stop Academy that covers working with power windows.

3. Never over-stylize

Many amateur colorists that come from an independent film background make the mistake of over-stylizing their commercial grades. This is often because they are so used to working with directors (possibly on genre films) that ask them to go really extreme with their grading, that they are almost programmed to push things really far in the color suite. 

In reality, most commercial projects need more color correction than color grading. In other words, a well-shot commercial should look great out of the can, and might not need a heavy look on it.

Usually just applying a LUT, balancing your shots, and matching everything gets you most of the way there. Once your power windows are added, you are probably 90% finished. At the very end, you might want to add just a touch of a look (warmer, cooler, etc.). Once again, there are cases where you need to break this rule, but more often than not, neutral and accurate works best for commercials.

Author: Noam Kroll

Sources: Article