You do television basically the same way you do print. You come up with pictures and words that work together to make a point about a product or service. In TV commercials, though, the pictures move. It's really that simple.
There's no rule which says TV commercials have to be dead serious and dry. In fact, even when the subject matter dictates that your spot be calm and quiet (life insurance is a possible example), it should still be visible and very memorable.
Your TV commercials should be more memorable than all of the TV commercials your interviewers see in other books, so don't be afraid to get funny, dramatic, or provocative. Just be sure the tack you decide to take is absolutely right for the subject matter of your commercial. If you're doing a commercial for Radio Free Europe, you'll probably want to stay away from jokes. If you're doing a spot for donuts, you probably won't want to be too dry. Stick to your feelings and common sense about what kind of subject matter should be handled in what way. You'll do fine.
When you're in the concept stage, try to do as many different approaches for TV as you do for print. Don't do only visual concepts or only copy. Do entire commercials. And do lots of them.
It's sometimes a good idea to make a print ad based on a TV commercial. That'll show a prospective employer that you can think an idea through in more than one medium.
What about the length of your TV commercials? Most commercials on the air now are thirty seconds long (there are some tens and a smattering of sixties). But in the beginning, don't worry about time. Your commercials are running in your portfolio, not on the air: their purpose is to get you a job, not sell products.
This is not to say that you should begin work on a spot without giving yourself some sort of format in which to work, be it ten seconds, thirty seconds, or sixty seconds. But don't worry if you start writing a thirty-second TV commercial and end up with a script that's forty seconds long. Just worry about having a brilliant concept behind each commercial in your book so it'll stick in your interviewer's mind long after you've left his sight. Make it sing.
Do that and your interviewer will have to hire you. He'll be afraid that if he doesn't, someone else will.
What about radio commercials? No medium is more fun or presents a bigger challenge to a copywriter than radio. And, radio is probably the most visual medium around.
Radio is theater of the mind. It gives you the chance to create pictures and feelings in the minds of consumers that you can't do any other way.
Think back to all of the radio commercials you like best. Chances are, they were either based on a musical theme, had funny dialogue, or were situations written in such a way that you could actually see what was going on in your mind's eye.
The important word there is "written," because all of the magic of radio is created through the magic of the written word. You get help from a voice and sometimes from music, but you never get to lean on pictures.
This explains why radio is the most difficult form of advertising to write. You can do it though, if you work at it.
Now, this isn't a course in how to write radio. But I will offer some guidelines.
1. If you're a musician, you can try your hand at writing music. Just remember that you're looking for a job as a copywriter, not as a composer, so concentrate on writing a nice, simple piece of music that exploits the sales points of the product you're trying to sell.
You can record it on a cassette tape player if you want. Just be sure the music and lyrics are appropriate for the product you're trying to sell. You'll never get a job by writing a piece of rock music to sell toilet paper. Two more things about music: If you can't write it, don't try to fake it. Nothing sounds quite as dumb as bad music performed on cassette. Never ever write a radio script that says "music here" without having at least some idea of what kind of music goes "here".
2. If it's appropriate for the product you're advertising, come up with a visual that could never be photographed and build your commercial around that. For instance, maybe someone could kidnap the Empire State Building. Or perhaps you could drain all the water out of Lake Michigan and refill it with butterscotch syrup. Those are the kinds of visuals that make radio a theater of the mind. Those are the kinds of antics that, when used appropriately, make your radio commercials more memorable than everyone else's. Use foreign accents and sound effects too.
Don't worry about writing a sixty-second radio commercial that's seventy-five seconds long. You're just starting out: it's the concept and copy on which you'll be judged, not the length.
Writing radio commercials sounds hard. It is hard! But doing a good one is more fun than skinny dipping. What a copywriter's portfolio boils down to is concepts, concepts, and more concepts, and writing, writing, and more writing. That's the only way you'll learn things like structure, rhythm, and balance, and the only way you'll learn the craft of writing.
Don't work just for the sake of working, though. There's a big difference between working and just putting in time. When I was a kid, I used to take guitar lessons. My mom used to make me practice that wretched stringed box for thirty long minutes every day. Since the only thing worse than practicing the guitar was facing my father when I didn't, I practiced-or rather, put in time-strumming that guitar for a half-hour each day. My parents paid my guitar teacher three dollars every week, and the longer I took lessons, the more money they wasted. See, while I was playing that guitar, I was thinking about how I'd rather be catching a football. I wasn't concentrating. I was wasting time. That was okay for me, though. Playing the guitar was a hobby. It's not okay for you, because you want to make advertising your livelihood.
You've got to concentrate. If you sit down to work and can't concentrate, don't try to fake it. Get up and do something you enjoy. You don't get better by staring at a blank piece of paper. You get better by thinking.
If you don't ever enjoy working on ads for your portfolio, you'll never enjoy working on ads for a client. And if that's the way you feel, maybe you should take this book back to the store, get a refund, and find something else you enjoy doing.
But if making ads is fun for you, then you'd better learn to put them into some semblance of a portfolio so you can go out and get yourself a job.
