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Producing an average television commercial is not a hard venture. Most average commercials are just thirty seconds of dry copy that sum up a business.

How do you know if you have seen an average commercial or worse; made one? If the commercial contains phrases such as: "Your one stop shop," "Best Selection in Town," "Lowest Prices Around," "Best Customer Service in the Business," then you have an average commercial.

As a producer I hate to admit that I have produced hundreds, dare I say thousands, of these commercials. Yes, they are quick, easy and affordable but the payoff is normally little if any. Most businesses feel they don't have the time or money to waste on creating an effective advertisement. What they fail to realize is that most average commercials are ignored.

One thing that I have learned is that most businesses aren't willing to take a risk on producing a quality commercial. They want a commercial that crams every detail of their business into thirty seconds. In order to produce this type of ad only takes basic writing skills. The first step is to decide if the business needs help from an advertising agency. Most can easily create an average commercial with no effort on the businesses part.

I normally want a client to write down one page of everything the business does. Then delete the least important things until you have thirty seconds of copy. It's that easy.

If hiring an agency or anyone else to help with the commercial then they can help decide who will shoot it or if using digital pictures may work. The next step is to decide if actors are needed or maybe the owner wants to be the star. Hiring actors is a good idea unless they are shooting for an average spot. Then they are probably wasting their money. If they truly want average then putting the business owner on camera will do. For the truly average then showing every aspect of the business wins the day. Average commercials usually show products on shelves, wide shots of the entire store or other meaningless shots with no clear definition. They lack character or meaning.

Oh wait, you say you have done radio before and now you want to take that script and turn it into a television commercial? Yes, you can transfer that script into a television commercial with minimal revisions. I have found that most radio scripts however are poor for television. Remember that you are creating a visual ad now. There are infinite possibilities to transform a business into a visual stimulant. Unfortunately most businesses don't want to rewrite the script and therefore fall into the average radio-to-television spot.

The last step to creating an average commercial is Post Production. The key to effective commercials comes from having a quality editor. More and more I come across businesses that have a friend that does editing on the side. They just spent $200 on a killer editing system. Great, now you are producing a commercial that average is a great achievement. Every step of a commercial is important. Ruining a commercial by having poor quality in the most crucial phase will doom its effectiveness.

Creating an average commercial is simple. Creating a commercial that will bring customers to your door will take creative writing and a creative concept. But if you are set on average don't be disappointed by the result.

Learn more about this author, Kstone.
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