Selling an ad? The basics.
Submitted by logiclane on Tue, 12/18/2007 - 09:15.
The first step, wich I find noone is writing, is to have your ideas on paper and notarized, then c.w.'d.
This means to think about your ad, think about it some more, and some more, then get it on paper. Never leave anything out there for someone else to steal. This is why you have it notarized then c.w.'d.
I have writted only 3 successes for a commercial adv. out of millions of ideas. Lots were dumped as "not enough JAZZ" and disregarded. The 3 that were used were briliiant because I made them that way. I dropped the others and never even inserted them.
I had a foundation, idea, pitch, understanding and a copywrite when I was done. They sold in no time.
The one factor sellers/ freelancers must understand, besides the money, is that they must rewrite multipe times until it is a perfect form of art. Let the "baby on the doorstep" go and get on to 21 century sarcasm... with a twist.
Heres the hard part.....
Im probably going to get alot of chit over this but it is true.
Try to suggest that the smart people are always the female and try to advertise to the minority community. Women love to spend and minorities love to show. The agencies know this, its the idealist who dont understand and that is why 95 percent go nowhere.
Enough said.
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You're probably going to get more 'chit' about that particular spelling of shit than anything else.
But do share with us how in your infinite wisdom you 'c.w.' (and by that I presume you mean copyright) an idea? This isn't possible. IANAL, but this little I know.
Many moons ago they used to tell us in school to send our campaigns to ourselves, registered mail and not open the letter before showing it to an agency. I have a few of those envelopes still lying around here, might be a fun thing to open now just to see what the hell I thought was that good back then, I mean most of my stuff was the usual ad student 'genius' you know. Visuals puns and teeny tiny logos. Hmmm.. Yeah that could be fun posting my student portofolio somewhere - hehehe.
Not sure how that holds up in court as I've never tested it but our tutors did tell us this was the way to do it. They were specific though, do it on a campaign that you are showing the agency that has the account, or do it for each campaign in your first job-hunting portfolio and keep record of each agency you visit. Only a few people bothered as I recall. I probably posted that one should do that at one time or another around here back in 1996 when I still believed it. Now I don't. You can't copyright an idea, only the execution of one.
I used to do the same thing in the mistaken belief that the "poor man's copyright" would actually hold up, but alas, it's not a legal form of copyright (at least not in the US). If you do a google search on "poor man's copyright," all the dime story lawyers will explain why in detail. But for a more accurate case law explanation, search Lexis-Nexis or FindLaw.
As for copyrighting an idea, would that it were so. I'd have been able to sue MTV and every film studio and I'd be a billionaire living in the South of France. :-)
PS - I'm moving this to ad chat as it has nothing to do with badland/dupliclaim/bad ads.
Oh and let me clarify about the "can't copyright an idea" - lets say hypothetical you have an idea for a space movie where astronauts are transporting some stuff on a spaceship and find out there's some kind of freaky acid-bleeding creature aboard. You describe it like Jaws in space. If you write down the story synopsis that will and can be copyrighted (the notary thing isn't necessary but if you like having independent witnesses stamping a date on it that can't hurt and will probably help). Well, say someone else has a similar idea, or even that someone else overheard you telling your mate about it - they can go out and write another script about aliens that bleed acid aboard of claustrophobic spaceships. There is nothing to prevent another author from using that same idea to do his or her own movie script. If you are really scared someone might steal your idea when they see your synopsis you could force anyone looking at it to enter a confidentiality agreement before showing them the idea.
Obviously, ad students who work like mad on their portfolio and then to get a meeting with anyone in advertising that might maybe possible could give them a job or at least some pointers don't carry the clout to have anyone sign anything.
Yes, however, as someone who has a small bit of experience with the development and production of studio movies, even the signing of such an agreement isn't always a guaranty of protection for one's idea, treatment, script, etc. Let's say that you submit a script to a producer and convince them to sign such a document. Should they produce an idea similar to yours at a later date, you still have to prove that the film was based on your idea, which is harder than one may think.
And the truth is that 99% of the script submitters in the world will never get a producer to sign such an agreement. As a matter of fact, when someone submits a script to me, I make them sign a submission waiver indemnifying me from any future legal actions or claims that any project I may be producing or may produce in the future has any connection to their script. Otherwise I won't read their script. It's just not worth it.
I have nothing against artists protecting themselves, and their work. As a matter of fact, I sued a French producer for using my work, not paying me, and then denying that he used it, and settled out of court for a fairly large sum about ten years ago. And this was for a film in competition at Cannes. But it's a litigious world, especially in the US, and the majority of these suits have no merit. At least in my humble opinion.
Exactly. Back to square one then. One or ten great ideas won't make you ad-king, but hundreds of thousands of them - preferably done as a response to briefs while working at an agency (so that you may execute the ideas which is really the only thing that can be copyrighted).
Ask anyone here - all of us have a "maaaan, I had that idea ten years ago" story to tell.
on topic - I wonder what happened in the "my Life. My Card" > tagline theft case.... ?