Lowering advertising costs? What you can do

26th April 2018

Advertising costs can sometimes feel exorbitant, but there are myriad things that can help your business with lowering costs

LOWERING Advertising costs is something that is tangible for businesses of all sizes and industries, but what can you do to support your company’s outlay?

Artists, contracts and buyouts

When devising a TV advertising creative — or radio for that matter — your business needs to consider how long your campaign will run for when deciding on the nature of artists’ contracts and the nature of them.

With a brand response campaign, which could be on air for many years as you look to exploit the most cost-effective means of advertising excluding sponsorship bumpers, choosing a lifetime buyout when you begin initial discussions will be crucial.

Although many will request the amount of TVRs the ad will enjoy, your company may not know and can take advantage of a more reactive, programmatic TV advertising sphere that facilitates a more flexible, trend-aware advertiser.

While this can be beneficial, if you feel the advert offers little long-term relevance and is more transient, your business can benefit from annual buyouts, or those that are dictated by the number of times your creative is aired on TV.

If you think your ad will be played out in more nominal amounts, but on lucrative, mass awareness settings, your business could benefit from on a contract that is lower to begin with – one that isn’t looking at mitigating any potential long-term broadcasts, which you may find as you negotiate your contracts.

Low Cost TV advertising for Framd from Space City
Lowering costs is possible with lifetime buyouts and fewer artists.

Having extras, too, will increase your initial and future outlay as you advertise. Some of the most compelling adverts made by Space City and beyond have utilised more authentic, real life scenarios to foster memorability and long-term responses.

The conflation of more artists equates to increased sales and responses is not true and is more dependant on how a message is communicated, notwithstanding the context and creative cues utilised.

With these elements made economical and session fees also reduced, you can immediately use the savings to improve your targeting online, or other campaigns that can be optimised to harvest the consumers’ data your ads have stimulated.

Locations, post-production and crews

In advertising as a whole, the locations and actors used do not carry much leverage in themselves, it is the quality of the editing, contrast and actual context of the acting that supports memorability.

Therefore, using locations that are local to your artists will be key to ensuring you save money in this regard.

Your artists will often request to be reimbursed for travel expenses, thus utilising artists from across the country, or flying them around the world will facilitate exorbitant production costs, notwithstanding the logistical challenges and increased licenses your business will need – especially if using children or animals.

As long as the context situates itself within what is appropriate for your potential consumer base and their desires, you will deliver success in both a brand and direct response context – depending on the nature of your commercial.

With these costs lowered, your business can focus on also reducing post-production costs, which consist of your online and offline editing processes.

When the rushes from your commercial (if applicable) have been ingested ready for an offline edit, you can mitigate certain costs from escalating through basic overall planning.

It will be prudent and more efficient to plan for full days with an editor, as appose to small incremental slots that will cost more than sessions agreed in bulk.

Backing up your files with your production company/agency will also serve to protect your business from the disastrous possibility of having to film elements of your commercial again – offsite and onsite back-ups would be preferential in this instance.

Tv advertising production from Space City for Crystale
Paying for additional back-ups may seem counterintuitive while lowering costs, but it is vital to protect your IP.

Having block days with your editor can ensure you are utilising time wisely, with a number of hours spent on footage actually calibrating locally to be editable.

Lowering the costs of media buying

Having a production company that has a strong relationship with media buyers and the wider digital placement arena is imperative.

With a knowledge of what certain consumer groups want as you segment your campaigns to compliment them, your business can lower costs by delivering versions of ads that will not need to be changed.

In DRTV, versioning is something that is repeated on a regular basis, with more bespoke, media-complimenting ads in the first place, you will be able to save ineffable sums of money to support other elements of your business and profit margins.

Choosing programmatic, too for your brand and DRTV will assist with lowering costs and ensure that your inefficient campaigns are either not broadcast at all, or to less prolific broadcast spots.

Savings can total more than 20% with this practice alone, with other savings found through keeping brand campaigns on the TV for longer.

Space City has been producing TV, online and radio commercials for over 25 years, lowering costs and improving the fortunes of business like Moonpig, GoCompare, Wowcher, Asda, Nestle and Karcher.

Contact the team now and find out how much you could gain from a commercial produced by the company that rose a further seven places up the Campaign Magazine agency rankings.

Drop us a line

020 7371 4000

0161 210 3330

0117 900 0444

"*" indicates required fields

Name*