Pitching Your Own Ad Campaign Idea

By Apryl Duncan, About.com

You've come up with the King of Ideas. This one's never been done before and you're the only one that can see it through. Talk to the agency. Pitch to the company that produces the prodcut. Just what is it that you do?

Your best chance of making this happen is actually bypassing an agency. An agency is going to be deadset on creating their own ad campaigns and are usually pretty closed-minded to any ideas coming from outside of the agency.

With that said, though, many companies who have ad agencies on retainer are also going to be closed-minded about hearing ideas because they're relying on the agency. Their line of thinking is that they've paid thousands of dollars to the agency so they should be the ones developing the ideas.

It's tough to break into ad campaigns for bigger companies. It can be done.

The agency process and getting your ideas out there is a complicated business. But I Have a Great Idea breaks down the process.

The good news is that in the last couple of years some companies have become more receptive to consumer-generated advertising. There are even companies that have held contests for consumers to create and submit their ads.

For example, MasterCard wants people to submit their own commercials for the Priceless campaign. The best will be shown nationally.

Chevy used The Apprentice to launch a contest where people could go online and put together their own commercial for the Tahoe. Kodak has given consumers the chance to upload their own photos to create a commercial.

Granted, some of these are just for fun. Even if you won a contest, you wouldn't be packing for Madison Avenue.

One of the biggest success stories is François Vogel's. He created a homemade HP commercial holding white picture frames up to his face using the song "Picture Book" by The Kinks.

He pitched his commercial to ad agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. They liked his homemade spec version so much, they signed him on as director and star in the "You + HP" ad campaign. Vogel became so recognizable to consumers that he even reappeared in the campaign with a similar commercial set to "Out of the Picture" by The Robins.

There's also another side to the story. With more people editing video on their computers, many people are creating their own commercials from the comfort of their home.

Most are created for fun, some are even spoofs of other commercials. But a lot of these are getting big amounts of publicity as they're picked up by advertising blogs and spread across the net.

California school teacher George Masters experienced that firsthand. He created a 60-second animated iPod commercial featuring the song "Tiny Machine" by the Darling Buds. He posted his ad on his Web site without any buzz and before he knew it, the commercial had spread across the Internet and had been watched about 50,000 times.

Quality and creativity made his commercial stand out and marketers noticed. They even commented on how professional this school teacher's homemade ad is.

Masters didn't quit his day job and head off to pursue a career in advertising, though. That may not even be your plan as many people simply want to submit one idea they've come up with and not become a part of the advertising industry after that.

To pursue your own idea and getting it out there, do your research. It would even help to create a concept ad for the company you plan on pitching to.

Show them you're serious and can deliver. It doesn't have to be anything fancy at this point. Vogel's HP ad featured test shots submitted to the ad agency to demonstrate his concept. This is just a preliminary introduction of your idea and what you can do for them.

Every company has a marketing department even if they have an outside ad agency. So contacting the company president isn't going to help but contacting the marketing department instead can be the best approach.

These are the guys and gals that can help get the ball rolling for you. Keep in mind, though, you may get a chilly reception because many people simply aren't going to be receptive to what they consider an outsider pitching an idea.
Just be ready to have the door slammed in your face many times and prepare to be persistent. You may get lucky.

Good luck and remember, it's not easy to get your concept put on TV, it's even rare. But as Vogel proved, it can be done.