It’s safe to say that restaurants have been around far longer than TV commercials to promote them. But TV has played a major role in the success of many restaurants. Big, international chains as well as smaller local brands know the importance of exposure and are turning to TV (and now YouTube and other media channels) to promote their brands with the goal of increased revenue.
Setting all the extraneous internal marketing aside, we’re going to focus this post on the part where a restaurant brand (or its marketing agency) reaches out to production companies with a brief in order to get proposals.
Those proposals come back and outline a production company’s vision for the spot. Included in that vision are ideas about some of the following:
Location: Not all restaurant commercials are filmed inside a restaurant. Some of the more adventurous ones are filmed in far-off locations or in studios depending on the creative concept behaving the commercial. The production company will suggest a number of locations that fit the theme off the commercial and the restaurant brand will provide input.
Casting: Casting of people for restaurant commercials is of great importance. Restaurants want to cast people who fit the same demographic as their customers so that viewers can relate to the people they see in the final commercial. There are many ways to cast - and some commercials don’t even cast actors anymore. They do what is called ‘street casting’ in order to find more authentic people who may already be fans of the brand.
Cinematography: They way a restaurant TV commercial is captured by a lens is of great importance. Style is key and if the TV commercial is to be a documentary-style, a director should use cinematography to match. Otherwise, a restaurant may end up with a documentary-style commercial shot using action-movie styled camera angles and motion.
Music: Music plays a huge role in TV commercial production. The right music will leave viewers remembering a TV commercial for days, weeks...even years. The wrong music in a TV commercial will leave them wondering what a brand was thinking. Much like cinematography, music must support what’s going on in the script without taking too much attention from the visual parts of the commercial.
These are four main elements that go into the production of a restaurant's TV commercial. Of course, there are plenty more, but these are things you can actually see and hear - so next time you see a commercial for your favorite restaurant, pay attention and see if you can pick out all the details and how they all work together to make a great commercial.
Got a commercial you just can’t get out of your head? Tell us about it in the comments.
