Write A Super Bowl Ad: No Writing Skills Needed?!?
by: Kevin Browne
I want to make this point crystal clear: if you write a Super Bowl ad and it gets produced and shown on the big game down in Florida, your life will be in jeapordy.
Why?
Because the people in the ad business that live and breathe advertising have desperately wanted to accomplish that their entire careers.
Writing a Super Bowl ad is their Mount Everest.
And if you come in and actually, I mean, actually write a Super Bowl ad that we end up seeing, and you're not in the business...well, I just can't even think about it.
*But I'm still a bit miffed at some of them so here's something they don't want you to know ...*
MOST PEOPLE THINK THAT WRITING A SUPER BOWL AD
ACTUALLY INVOLVES SOPHISTICATED WRITING SKILLS.
Wrong.
'Writing' a Super Bowl Ad is 95% about dreaming up a great idea and then 5% making sure you have one great line at the end of the idea.
That's right people. The 'writing' aspect that most people fear ISN'T really writing at all. What you'll be doing is called...
..conctpting. Much, much different than writing. And that's why the NFL Write a Super Bowl ad contest is VERY winnable by someone outside of the advertising world!
Writing a book is writing. Writing for CNN is writing. Writing commercials the rest of the year is writing (arguably).
But 'writing' a Super Bowl ad is about you dreaming up a killer idea for a brand. You, and a cup of Earl Grey, or a frosty beer, and a set of pads and a Sharpie.
What you'll be 'writing' on your pad will look a lot like this:
"Joe Montana walks into a bar
in the old West. He notices
a skunk at the bar...(MORE HERE)"
Or like this...
"The guy who laces up all the
footballs for the Super Bowl
is missing and his family
thinks...(MORE HERE)"
Or...
"The grocery store is boarded up.
The bowling alley is empty...
The airport is closed...
Why...because...(MORE HERE)"
These are scenarios. They are the theater os the Super Bowl spot that you will write. There's no mechanics to them at this point. There is idea concepting.
Don't get me wrong...it's very hard. But this is about you wring a Super Bowl ad, so suffer through it.
Write down as many concepts as you can. Then short list them. Then be brutal on your ideas and narrow them down to 4 Not 3...four. Everyone does the Rule of Three, but you're trying to be a copywriter...and copywriters do things differently.
Give yourself the time to keep knocking your best ad off its perch (constantly put better and better ads in its place.)
Then, and only after you are convinced that you have written a Super Bowl ad worthy of being produced, do you need to go in and write a line of COPY that ties everything back to the brand...(or in this case for the NFL).
I'll bet you never, ever thought writing a Super Bowl ad involved so little actual writing, did you?
Still don't know how to get the idea out but know you've got a great one? Contact me with your specifics, and I'll help. I'll add your questions and my answers to my web site and we'll call it even.
[email protected] or visit my site:
http://www.become-a-copywriter.comAbout The Author
Kevin Browne is a twenty year Madison Avenue copywriter and Group Creative Director. He has produced over 200 television and radio commercials while working at esteemed agencies such as J. Walter Thompson, McCann Erickson, and Young and Rubicam, all in New York.
Kevin lives in Connecticut with his wife and four boys.
