Avoiding Overwriting

When writing commercials for a television station, you are always wanting to write.  But, the key is to not overwrite.  In radio, it's much simpler because all people have to sell their product is words.  For television, we have video to go along with the audio.  In my opinion, the more simple the writing, the more successful the commercial will be.  If you look at any funny or good commercial, most of them usually only use the least amount of words needed.  I look at the Superbowl commercials and the commercials are known for being funny.  Most of them have very few words and lots of action.  That is the toughest thing to do because anybody can write a commercial, but is it effective enough to where people don't need to even really have volume on their television because the commercial gets the point across.

Organizing the Message

Our whole lives we learn how to write in an unblemished fashion.  Meaning, we can NOT have contractions, elipses, or even an overuse of commas.  So picture this, a life of being taught how to not write that and now being told to write the exact opposite way is pretty confusing.  I will find myself writing in this "proper" or "formal" way and then realize, "Wait, I can't be talking like this!"  Now I'm not saying use contractions and overuse commas in a research paper or proposal.  This is strictly for writing commercials and spots for radio and television.  The biggest thing a writer needs to do is to connect or relate to the target audience.  If we don't do that, then we are not doing a good job.  This is the most important part in writing.

Broadcast Copy Preparation

When people are planning a commercial, what do we think of?  Well, there is the steps of knowing what the audience is for the particular advertisement.  But, then it's knowing how to appeal that certain audience.  Knowing the age, demographic, lifestyle, everything!  It's hard trying to find all of that out, and then to even try to target that audience is even harder!  UGH! But life goes on and the writer keeps writing!

Keeping It Conversational

In writing commercials for any company will be tough!  Especially, when you get a commercial where you can't really make it appealing to a baby.  There are so many challenges in writing, but I think the biggest challenge for me, so far, is trying to appeal to multiple audiences.  Even using little things like contractions.  I have been taught all of my life to never use them in writing and now that I have to use them quite frequently, it's messing me up a little.  Contraction is almost a connotative word to me just because my English teacher hated them that much!  I know that I'll get the hang of it sometime, but It's going to be hard!