How To Write Ads - A Framework

Developing good ideas for ads is hard. Communicating those ideas to your team and to the client is even harder. You could have the best idea in the world, but if you can’t communicate it well or pitch it through, it will never see the light of day.

I took a Masterclass from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, which is an award-winning advertising agency in San Francisco. They created a framework for mapping out ads that makes it easy to understand what the viewer will be seeing and hearing for each second of the ad. Check out this framework. It’ll help you get your ad ideas on paper, and clearly communicated to your team.

Start by drawing a line down the middle of the page. At the top of the line, write “0:00.” At the bottom of the line, write how long your ad will be. For this example, we’ll make a thirty-second ad, so write “0:30.” On the left side of the line, write what you’ll see in the ad. On the right side of the line, write what you’ll hear in the ad. (It helps me to place the ending payoff moment first, because then I know there will enough time to drive the main point home.) From there, work backwards, making sure your key points have time to be shown and heard. 

I have a notebook full of ad ideas like this one. It’s a fun exercise to flex your creative muscles when you have ideas pop in your head. And who knows? You just might be able to rework one of these someday. 

Good luck out there!