Cable Spots Follow Up

[Randall Raymond]

[Aaron Cadieux] “Ok, let me see if can get you to understand my logic.”

I don’t. I think you’re an egocentric spoiled brat. How does that sit in your universe?

[Zane Barker]

Aaron, I understand why you are upset, you feel that we are ignoring your question. The fact is that we saw bigger issues then pricing that should be addressed.

Business is all about image!!! Your website is the often the face of that image. For someone who is trying to sell a creative product your website screams to people that you have no creative bone or mussel in your body. Most people will take a quick look at your website and immediately dismiss you as a creative professional, before even looking at your sample video, and long before they would wonder what your prices are. It would be well worth it to spend a little money on a web template to use for the site.

As for the video issues on the website. As media professionals here on the Cow we have the ability to play far more types of video, then the average person. As video professionals we often go out of our way to make sure we can watch all types of web video. So when the professionals cannot play the video on your site it means that a large portion on the average computer users will also not be able to play the video, because they don’t go to the lengths we do to ensure that we can watch it all.

Again it is not that we don’t want to help you with your questions, it is just that we saw bigger issues then pricing. You need to be able to keep people interested long enough that they want to know what your pricing is. The first thing they see is the website, the send thing they see is your demo reel. They see both of these things before even looking into what you charge. That is why I focused on the website and then the demo reel.

If you get both of those things looking really good then you can actually charge more for what you do because the customer then believes that you are worth more Right now your website tells people that you are not worth paying to do any creative work at all. Get the website looking really good and top that off with an impressive demo reel and you can charge whatever you want.

Don’t let technology get in the way of your creativity!

[Ron Gerber]

All fun aside… I’d estimate between $450 and $750 for those cable spots in a market your size. The hard thing about local cable is there’s always someone that will do it for less. And your local cable company probably isn’t worried about how much the spots cost only about how much the airtime buy is. In the local cable world, the local commercial is just a vehicle to get to the media buy. Focus on creating a quality product that works for the client at a fair price (for you and the client).

[Aaron Cadieux]

Thank you very much. You’re the first person to actually answer my initial question. I appreciate it.

-Aaron

[Ron Lindeboom]

[rongerber] “I’d estimate between $450 and $750 for those cable spots in a market your size. The hard thing about local cable is there’s always someone that will do it for less. And your local cable company probably isn’t worried about how much the spots cost only about how much the airtime buy is. In the local cable world, the local commercial is just a vehicle to get to the media buy.”

The bottomline in this, is that the local cable companies will nearly always do it for free. They crank out cookie-cutter spots that for the most part all use the same templates and style. They race through the production and so they are worth everything a client is paying for them — which is usually nothing.

Your production values had better be higher than what is the benchmark set by the cable companies as it’s rough to compete against free, otherwise.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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[Ron Gerber]

Most of what Ron said is accurate however the business model is changing in my market (and the other markets serviced by the company I work for). The suits higher up decided that you get what you pay and a client that pays for a commercial tends to have a more vested interest in making sure it works (by spending more money on airtime). Basically getting out of the cookie cutter mode and creating better commercials means better results for the client thus less churn. Yes we still do a large share of cookie cutter type spots but generally the clients are paying us for them and believe it or not, we loose out on a lot of the smaller ones because we charge too much. Someone always has a brother or neighbor with a video camera and a computer that can do it for less. Of course we don’t turn away the airtime buy. Oddly enough, our local broadcast stations are the ones giving away the “free” production (if you spend the right amount for airtime). It’s an uphill battle because in the end, my boss answers to a boss who answers to the big boss and they don’t like to give anything away for free. Here’s a link to a demo of some of the work our offices have doing last year.

https://brighthouseadvertising.com/man_sec/video/web%20video%20montage-web%20video.mov

[Ron Lindeboom]

Hey Ron,

I just played your reel and have to say that it is a lot nicer than the local spots that run in my area of the world. Most local spots I have seen never reach the level of what I see in your reel.

You are right that many advertisers are seeing that free ads are not always a good deal when/if paying for production can produce a spot that generates greater sales and return.

Thankfully, many companies are more concerned about their customer perception and so are willing to pay for commercials, not all (or even the majority, at least in our area) but many.

Just as in your area, it is the network affiliates now that give away the most work. But you can always tell the clients that pay for their production, from those who don’t.

Thanks for your viewpoint, Ron.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
Join the COW’s LinkedIn Group

Now in the COW Magazine: Commercials. A look at the history, strategy, techniques and production workflows of successful commercials. All brought to you by some of the COW’s brightest members. Accept no substitutes!

Would you like to be in Creative COW Magazine with your story or contribution? Contact me.

Do you have your complimentary subscription to Creative COW Magazine yet?

[Ron Gerber]

I’d love to take credit for the demo reel but its made up of commercials from our 9 different creative services departments. For some reason they didn’t want to put any of my work on there – I guess the used car salesmen jumping on the hood and kicking tires wasn’t what we were shooting for.

Thanks,

Ron

[Todd Terry]

Great reel, Ron…especially some really nice DP working going on there.

It also shows that every market is different, and you have to know your market and what customers there are to go after.

We started our little company to fill a very specific niche. There were a lot of television advertisters in our area that wanted, needed, and deserved better spots than they could get for $200 (or yes, even free) produced by the television stations or the cable companies. At they same time. Nor could they afford to spend $50K or even $25K for a :30 spot produced by a big post house. We set out to fill that niche somewhere in between. Consequently, we do tons of spots in the $4k-$12K neighborhoods.

Of course we try to “upsell” when we can (higher/bigger/better productions, better talent, 35mm when possible, etc.), but it is often the case that three $10,000 spots will have a lot more profit in them than one for $30,000.

It just goes to show, a little research is usually in order to see what the market will bear. What works great for us might fail misearably somewhere else.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Herb Sevush]

Aaron –

On behalf of the non-Randalls here at the Cow I would like to apologize for this thread. If I knew anything about pricing Cable spots I’d gladly tell you, but that’s not my world. If you want a critique of your spots, let me know, I’ll throw in my .02

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions