Jan 25, 2023
Primetime on the Big Game, Making of Super Bowl Ads w/ Rich Singer
- BRT S04 EP04 (166) 1-22-2023
What We Learned This Week
- One Sentence – What does the Client want to tell the customers, in 1 Sentence
- One Big Idea – One Main Idea, One Emotion, One Story, One Promise, One Call to Action (CTA)
- David Ogilvy is the Father of Modern Advertising, Ad Man from Madison Ave in NYC, Mad Men is based on his ad firm
- TV is Expensive. There is a tendency for clients to want to jam in too much into an ad.
- AD Agency starts working on Super Bowl ads in August of the previous year, it is a 6 month process.
Guest: Rich Singer
https://www.linkedin.com/in/richsinger/
Award-winning Creative Director/Copywriter with over a decade of experience. Brands include Nike, The NFL, ESPN, E*TRADE, Yahoo and GE. Portfolio: zackandrich.com
Notes:
Seg. 1
The show madman is about an ad agency in New York City in the 1960s. It is based on the classic ad agency of Madison Avenue called Ogilvy and Mather. It was run by David Ogilvy. Ogilvy is considered the father of modern advertising.
He talked about that ads needed One Big Idea. An idea that is unique, timeless and surprising. Ogilvie was a big believer in direct response advertising, bottom line when you sell products.
He had many advertising tenants or Commandments. You can’t bore people into reading your ad. Don’t be cute, be clear. Clearly define the position of the ad, who it is for. Ad should be conversational, clear with no jargon, to not confuse customers. Use the language of the customer. Ad copy should have simple headlines, with short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.
Michael Masterson of Agora Publishing took the one big idea and elaborated on it. He said all ad copy should be about One Idea. This makes the ad copy organized, easier to follow, and it flows better.
One Idea with one emotion, telling one story, giving the customer one promise, and finally one action for the customer to take.
Clip from 12/2021 Hollywood / Marketing Show
Hollywood, Storytelling & Evil Dead’s Bruce Campbell
Nostalgia in Hollywood Marketing
MB on Sales and Storytelling, Mad Men TV Show Business Lessons from Westworld TV Show (on HBO).
In the Mad Men (TV Show on AMC) episode from season 1 called ‘The Wheel’, Don Draper compares a slide viewer to a carousel, and then a time machine. The slides are taking you back to a better time when everything was good. He talks of the power of nostalgia, and the emotions we carry for the past.
The word nostalgia comes from two Greek words; nostos, meaning “to return home,” and algos, meaning “pain.” In modern times, defined as a feeling of pleasure, and also slight sadness when you think about things that happened in the past. When we yearn for the past, we want to re-capture the magic, the old emotion we once felt.
Full Show: HERE
Seg 2
Rich Singer has a 20 year career in advertising, working for New York firms. He started in print ads, then radio, billboards, smaller TV ads and worked his way up to doing major TV ads and Super Bowl ads.
When you first meet with a client to create an ad campaign what do you discuss? Try to determine what the client wants to say.
Boil down the client message to one sentence. The ad needs to be clear. What the client wants to say, needs to be in one sentence.
TV is expensive. There is a tendency for clients to want to jam in too much into an ad. They want to have multiple messages, when you need one message that can be laid out in one sentence.
What is the objective of the ad? Is it a brand story, building the company brand. Is it an offer story, like a special sales package being run in all the stores.
There are different levels to a sales funnel and your advertising has to match what level you believe your customers are on. Customers who are new to a brand, would need to see a different ad from a company that has a well established brand where customers already know what they’re getting.
The analogy Rich uses when talking with clients, is like a dog with a tennis ball. If you throw one tennis ball at a dog he catches that. If you throw two tennis balls at a dog he just stands there, because he doesn’t know what to do. This is what customers feel like if you try to throw too many messages at them in one ad.
After the initial meeting with the client the creative team has typically 2 weeks to create a concept. Then you will check in with the client to discuss the overview of the concept, see if it is to the client’s liking. Then typically you have 2 more weeks to work it out more. Meeting number 2, creative team would show the client a first draft of a script.
Rich is a copywriter and creative who works with his partner who is an art Director. They run a team of six people total, broken into three teams of 2, each also consisting of a copywriter and an art Director.
Seg 3
Super Bowl ads ship to Network about 2 weeks before the big game. The process to create the Super Bowl ads started months before. Networks will approve the ad script, with lawyers also working on that process. Networks have the right to reject an ad from an agency. The last thing you want, and it’s rare, is to send an ad for the Super Bowl to a Network and they rejected it.
Agencies start working on Super Bowl ads in August of the previous year, and it is about a 6 month process. A client is spending $7 million with the net work to buy a 30 second spot during the Super Bowl.
After the initial meeting, the creative team spends 3 to 4 weeks writing the first draft of the spot. In September Rich and his team would present the script or Scripts, could be three to the client. In the presentation will be Rich, his partner, his boss, meeting with the client team which could be 3 to 4 people. Rich and his team has created six Super Bowl ads.
Ads are initially filmed in November, or about 2 1/2 months before the Super Bowl. Sometimes, though an ad could be filmed as late as New Year’s. Many people plus lawyers review Scripts and there are multiple revisions throughout the process. The final script is put together before filming.
Lawyers and clients are looped in throughout the process and approving the script. Once you have approved Scripts you go out and you hire a Director and a production team to make the commercial. The Director would then be responsible to create a treatment and may be a storyboard for the commercial.
The ad agency has a producer who works with the production company and Director to get the process going. There’s also a line producer who is on site during a commercial shoot keeping the process moving. At an actual commercial shoot there might be a production team that could be upwards of 100 people plus actors and extras who are in the ad. The agency will send 6 to 10 people, as well as the client probably has 3 to 7 people also at the shoot.
Seg 4
After a commercial is filmed goes into post production. This involves editing the commercial, possible re-shoots, and post edits. This is also where computer graphics and digital effects are added to an ad as well as music and sound.
Special effects and computer graphics are very advanced where you can change backgrounds within an ad. Amount of special FXs all depends on the budget of the commercial.
Rich has been involved in commercials filmed at multiple NFL stadiums where there could be as many as 100 extras to sit in a crowd. Usually when you create a Super Bowl, the agency and client are in agreement on what they’re trying to accomplish. The most likely goal is brand buzz.
You know you have a successful Super Bowl ad when it’s a crowd pleaser, people are entertained, and they are talking about it the next day. The goal of any great Super Bowl ad is to be memorable and entertaining.
Again clients are spending a lot of money, $10 million for this process. $7 million with the NFL and Network to air the ad, and a $3 million production cost. You’re hiring actors, production teams, possibly celebrities and athletes.
There is a lot involved in a 30 second ad. Rich said the script needs to be extremely tight. A 30 second ad would have 30 frames in it and every frame Hass to be thought out & timed, and accounted for in the script.
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