by LBi

The process involved in the creation of an online advertising campaign follows an almost identical process to that used in the production of a TV advertisement. At a high-level this centres around 8 key stages:

• The brief and the briefing
• Planning and creative concepting
• Pre-production
• Production
• Post-production
• Execution
• The campaign
• Campaign Analysis

The brief and the briefing

At the heart of every successful advertising campaign is the brief, and ultimately the briefing given to both the creative and media agency; this is just as true when embarking on an online campaign as it is with any other medium. Involve your digital agencies as early in the process as possible; a well written single brief will outline the vision and communication objectives for all advertising mediums. Remember it’s becoming less important to have ‘matching luggage’ in the form of a singular creative concept executed across all mediums, whilst this may help recall, more often than not it doesn’t drive interaction.

Planning and creative concepting

Once you’ve issued your brief and held your briefing the creative agency and media agency will start their planning process; for the creative agency this will involve getting under the skin of your brief and briefing, applying further insight, collaboration with your media agency, and producing a creative brief for the creative team to work from. Just like an above-the-line agency, digital agencies use planners, art directors and copywriters.

The creative team will scamp up concepts that meet your communication objectives and provide a creative route that will work within the scope of the media plan.

This stage should include a detailed project plan that takes into account the objectives, list of stakeholders and an area often overlooked; a list of potential risks and contingencies.

How long does all this take? You should allow for 1-2 weeks for the planning and concepting phase depending on the size of your campaign and the quality of your brief. The better the brief is the less the planning time is needed as a general rule. This phase comes to an end once the creative route has been approved.

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Pre-Production

Once you have agreed on a creative direction for the campaign, we enter the pre-production phase. Just like in the production of a TV commercial, digital creative agencies need to plan the detail of the production.

Why? Well quite simply each campaign is unique and features different skill sets and expertise. Remember an online campaign can be as simple as static frame-by-frame animation, and at its most complex; feature videos, data acquisition, game play and lots, lots more .

To help explain this process let’s look in detail at each of the components that go into making an online campaign.

Your production may use:

• Design
• Illustration
• 3D design
• Production
• Photography and video
• Sound
• Data acquisition
• Game play

Let’s take a look at each of these. We’ll describe what goes on during pre-production and how long you can expect it all to take.

Design
Pre-production time is needed to allow for the creative agency to ensure that a designer with the suitable skill-set and brand exposure is resourced to the production.

Illustration – 1st Phase

As with design, the creative agency will need to source the right illustrator for the job and sometimes this may mean stepping outside of the agency resource pool; especially if the agency needs to source an illustrator with a particular ‘style’.

3D design & illustration

Not used as often as it once was, but it still worthy of a place within this guide is 3D design and illustration. 3D designers and illustrators, just like their 2D counterparts often sit outside of the agency resource pool, therefore you should allow some time for your agency to find the right person or company for the job.

Consideration also needs to be given to media owner and ad-serving specifications, this may limit the usage of rich media assets.

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Photography & video

Organising photoshoots and filming is a time consuming business. The checklist of questions your Producer will ask include –

• Do I need a studio or location? Does the studio need to be green screen?
• Is there travel involved?
• Which Director, photographer and crew do I use?
• Do I need models, actors or other on-screen talent?
• What about props, make-up and wardrobe?
• What are the rights, royalties and legal considerations?
• Does this comply with health and safety?
• Just like your above-the-line agency, your digital creative agency will commission a production company that is best suited to execute the filming or photography.

How long does this take? With all of the variables at play it’s hard to say just how long the pre-production phase will take, especially if you need to seek approval from brand licensors. As a guide you should allow for 2 weeks for the agency to work on these aspects.

A note on video

Digital creative agencies are producing more and more video executions for clients. It’s worth bearing in mind that although we hear about convergence, the internet is still a separate medium from TV. Often a TVC re-packaged for online disappoints consumers as the Director hasn’t thought of filming a beautiful TVC that will also look beautiful in a small video player window on a web page. That “long shot” of a new product may look great on a cinema screen, but remember when it’s online it’ll be tiny, only a few pixels wide! Also, the length of online video ads is an issue as anything longer than 15 seconds on short-play video tends to annoy users and intrude on their online experience. As a guide, keep ads to 15 seconds or less, unless the creative is particularly compelling.

Sound

You may want sound adding to the consumer experience; more often than not sound will manifest itself as ‘event’ sounds (on rollovers, clicks etc.) or the video soundtrack as opposed to a full orchestral soundscape! Sound can be intrusive if not used correctly, your creative agency will be able to advise you as to whether or not it’s appropriate for your campaign. As a guide, sound should only be used when a user requests to hear it.

Data acquisition

Rich media advertising formats can support the ability for users to input data direct into the advertisement itself. This can prove to be very powerful, especially in instances where you want interaction without the need to click-through to a destination site or landing page.

Game play

Whether simple casual games, competitions or quizzes, game formats can engage and drive user interaction, especially if they’re incentivated. Pre-production on game play involves the paper design of the game play mechanic and the sourcing of their associated prizes – this can be a fairly quick process if your product is in itself a worthy prize.

Risks and considerations

As with all specialist crafts, it may not be possible to secure the desired creative talent needed. Good Directors, Illustrators etc, are often booked well in advance.

Consideration needs to be given to media owner and ad-serving specifications, this may limit the usage or combination of rich media assets that can be used.

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Production

The plans are laid, the talents booked and the illustrator’s at the ready. Now the fun begins. In production not only do we get all the component assets we need but also build the advertising units. Let’s take a look at each of the components and then see how it all comes together to make the finished campaign.

Design

During production the designer or designers will begin the process of turning the creative team’s scamps into the final designs. This will involve all of the necessary design, artworking and typesetting.

How long does this take? It all depends on the size of your campaign, but you should budget for a week.

Illustration – 2nd Phase

The illustrator will produce the necessary vector based illustrations; often this will include the necessary frames to enable the flash designer to create the necessary animations – more on that later. How long does this take? You should budget for a week for the illustrator to produce their work.

3D design

In the same way that the illustrator creates a 2D world the 3D artist adds the other dimension. As with illustrations the final files will more often than not be in vector format to allow easy integration with Flash.

How long does this take? As with illustration you should budget for a week for the illustrator to produce their work.

Photography and video

Lights, camera, action! A shoot and all that goes with it will take a day, provided that multiple scenes, sets or locations aren’t used.

Sound

A sound designer will work with the creative team in creating the right audio ambience to work with your campaign; this process normally takes a week.

Data acquisition

Building application functionality within your advertisements is the responsibility of the Flash developer; you should allow a week for production and testing and involve those necessary parties who manage consumer data and systems.

Games

Flash developers are responsible for game production. Depending on the complexity of your game mechanic you should allow 1 to 4 weeks for production.

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Post-production

Not all of the components we’ve looked at require post-production, but you should allow a week for the editing and encoding of any video or sound.

Execution

Now we have all of our components it’s the job of the Flash designers and developers to bring them all together into the final online advertisement units. This normally consists of building a ‘master’ file for approval and then creating the different versions required for the full media plan.

Execution times can vary based on the components you’ve used in your production. For example a typical online advertisement will use just design and illustration. In this instance typical timings would be two days for the production of the Flash master and a day per unit for standard inventory, banners, skyscrapers, MPU’s etc.

For each placement your agency will create two types of file format; the Flash file, called a “swf” (pronounced “swiff”) and a backup “gif” alternative.

Extra complexity is added by using rich media advertisements. Expand banners and skyscrapers, overlays, video banners, and synchronised units all involve a greater level of effort and testing. You should allow for 5 days for the execution and testing of each rich media format.

Full information about the different display advertisement formats can be found here

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The Campaign

During the campaign your digital creative agency will work with your media agency to monitor and optimise the campaign where appropriate.

Campaign Analysis

At the end of the campaign your digital creative agency will work with your media agency to understand the successes or lesson learnt from the creative.


The above diagram illustrates a high-level timeline of the end-to-end production of a campaign. In this instance we have chosen to illustrate a creative route featuring video.

Finally, despite the example timescales, professional or brand communications will invariably take longer
than you or even your agency can anticipate. Therefore give yourself ample time to implement campaigns. Online should no longer be regarded as a ‘quick’ medium.

“Remember it’s becoming less important to have ‘matching luggage’ in the form of a singular creative concept executed across all mediums, whilst this may help recall, more often than not it doesn’t drive interaction.” Laurent Ezekiel, worldwide client services director, LBi

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