Over the past two months I have conceived, written, produced and shipped nine commercials for two separate clients.
I am not pro any one medium over another.
But there's one thing I'll say in favor of TV over perhaps anything else.
You have to, quickly, in 15-seconds or 30, get attention, communicate something, and persuade.
To be successful you have to embrace brevity.
You have to be scrupulously reductive.
Taking everything out.
These are disciplines that are lacking in much of today's world. Yes, I know Twitter only gives you 140 characters. But that's a different kettle of fish.
When I was young in the business, I was often stuck.
I felt I had no ideas, no way to solve the brief I was assigned.
Often what I did was write.
And write.
And write.
Doing so allowed me to focus.
To start wide and then narrow.
Narrow down to a single sentence.
That usually became my headline or a tagline.
The discipline of brevity is a discipline there's too little of.
My advice?
Work long hours making things short.
