One thing that can be immensely helpful for your career—no matter your role—is learning how to make a great ad concept in one day.

If you are an entrepreneur, having this knowledge can be extremely helpful because it gives you the freedom to experiment and iterate without having to wait for a marketing professional to help. And, as you likely know, speed is everything for an entrepreneur.

If you work in a large company, it also helps to have this knowledge—even if you don’t work in marketing. Understanding the work that goes behind this task can help you in your own creative endeavors both inside and outside of work. It can also provide you with an appreciation of what creative professionals do every day.

Because of this, I wanted to give you an inside look at how to create a great ad concept—all in one day. Since the world moves so quickly, we often don’t have the time to wait days or weeks to finish an ad concept. It may have to be done in one day—even if that makes us uncomfortable.

Simply put, the job has to get done. There’s no way around it.

At Dubb, we love creating videos and sharing our work with the world. And in growing the business, we have discovered some key tenets and principles on making a compelling ad concept in a limited amount of time. By following some of the tips below, you are more likely to develop a terrific ad concept in only 24 hours.

Creating Ad Concepts in One Day: One Example

Recently, I was fortunate enough to be invited to deliver the keynote address at the upcoming SECON Conference. SECON is a social engineering awareness conference that brings together cybersecurity, risk, and audit professionals. The objective of the conference is to create awareness about social engineering, and to demonstrate the unique ways to manage, detect, and mitigate risk. I, along with three other individuals, are delivering keynote addresses at the conference.

As part of this, I wanted to brainstorm a video that I could play at the conference. Working with Shannon, we sought to create a video that is compelling, entertaining, and that has a message that will resonate with the audience.

Before we got started, though, we wanted to ensure that we were abiding by several important principles to creating an ad concept. Some of those principles are:

  • Determining the audience. While this may seem like an obvious step, many creators take their audience for granted. By knowing who your audience is and what their wants and needs are, you can create an ad concept that is better suited for them. With this, however, be aware that your audience isn’t necessary monolithic.
  • Understanding your product. Again, this may be obvious, but it’s especially critical in conjunction with the first principle. Think about how your product or service is going to solve the audience’s problems. Your ad concept will then reflect that you truly do understand what you are offering to the world.
  • Select the best medium. Sometimes an ad concept may be better suited for YouTube over television (or vice versa). You may even want to go out-of-the-box and consider something different like a banner ad. Don’t be afraid to mix it up, so long as you understand why you are selecting a particular medium over others.
  • Don’t forget who, what, when, where and how. Act like a journalist and ask these questions as you are creating an ad concept. Focus on these basics and you will be on your way.

An Ad Concept in One Day

These principles are critical and are ones that we constantly follow at Dubb. But that only addresses half of the equation. The other half is developing an ad concept in one day.

Admittedly, this sometimes is easier said than done. The time restrictions can make your work challenging—even though constraints often stoke creativity. It can be stressful and you can feel like you need to do one million things at once. At the end of the process, you may feel drained and may feel like you didn’t deliver your best work.

If this happens to you, don’t worry. It is common and it doesn’t mean that you designed a terrible ad concept.

To illustrate how we at Dubb create an ad concept in 24 hours, I want to bring you into the room of creating my video for the SECON conference. As with all of our videos, I start with a blank slate. Anything is possible.

However, there is one thing that I keep in mind at the beginning. When creating a concept, my goal is to keep it as simple as possible. Having a simple premise—and sticking with that premise—makes it easier for viewers to understand my objective and how I can help them.

So with my video for the SECON conference, my objective was a simple one: to argue that professionals in cybersecurity, risk, and auditing need to come together to build trust. I felt confident that this premise would pique my audience’s interest and captive their attention throughout my address.

Once I have developed a premise and written down particular concepts on a whiteboard, I next come up with a script. For this ad concept, Shannon and I embraced a different collaboration process. Instead of working on one script together, we both created our own versions of a script. We then came together and fused our ideas into one final script that satisfied both of us. It was a fun collaboration process that I would definitely try again.

After Shannon and I agreed on a final version of a script, we then proceeded to the next stage: voiceover recording. Luckily, Dubb’s world headquarters is in a WeWork building that provides some awesome sound recording studios. Recording a voiceover is a pretty straightforward process. While it may take some trial and error, it is one of the easier parts of the process.

From recording the voiceover, the last part of the process is editing. This can take up some time, but the more effort you put into it, the better your video will look. Shannon was then able to find some b-roll video from various sources. The job of the b-roll video is to spice up the video and to show off our personalities.

Editing is the final stage of the process, so it may feel tempting to skimp on it to meet your deadline. I urge you to resist this temptation. Editing is just as important as the brainstorming process, so you will need to spend adequate time here to develop a great video.

Time Sensitivities

In this modern era of content creation, it is important to get our work done in a certain amount of time. But along with this, that content has to be great content.

You have to try to avoid the trade-off here. It is critical to develop great content in a short time frame.

Luckily, however, this task isn’t as hard as it used to be. Technology has made our lives easier in many ways, but especially in content creation. In 2019, we can purchase nice cameras for cheap. We can leverage terrific editing software, which can help us edit a video the way that we imagine it. And along with this, we have our own creative minds and energy that, when directed toward one goal, can produce some amazing results.

This isn’t saying that producing an ad concept in one day is easy. It can be difficult. Writing a script in one day is hard, and often, you may not feel 100 percent satisfied with your concept. But having said that, good is better than perfect. It is impossible to develop a truly perfect ad concept in 24 hours, so you have to work with what you have. But often, by placing a deadline like this on yourself, you can come up with some truly amazing concepts.

You Can Do It

At least in my mind, creating new ad concepts is extremely exciting. It requires you to tap into your creative juices and make something that truly resonates with your audience. While it can be difficult to do in a tight time frame, it isn’t impossible. It can be done—whether you are a creator in your day-to-day job or if you are simply curious about improving your content creation skills.

So just remember the following: understand your audience. Figure out what it is that they are trying to solve and how they are trying to improve their lives. From there, explain how you and your product can help them. Better yet, try connecting with them on an emotional level. Try triggering curiosity in their minds. It is one of the most powerful aspects of a commercial, so you definitely don’t want to ignore it.

By embracing any and all ideas—including the “crazy ones”—you will surely develop an ad concept (within 24 hours) that resonates with your audience. I wish you the best of luck!