You might have heard that an effective advertising is not coming up with new and tricky concepts but to put the familiar concept in a new and unique way. Creativity, however, is subjective. What might be created for you might not be created for someone else? But in general, creativity is to arrange an already existing sequence in a way that nobody else can do.

Ad concept refers to a creative team, working together on behalf of a client, to come up with a creative concept for an ad or an entire advertising campaign. The team majorly consists of a creative director, who leads the creative team including the designer, photographer, and production team. And then there is a copyright director who manages the content creation part, including the idea, strategy, and copyrights, along with other legalities.

The creative ad concept sets the foundation for the entire ad campaign. If the concept is relevant and strong, the entire ad campaign will be a success. It is the story that is presented through an ad or series of ads to convey the message. A good ad concept will be able to convey an effective and memorable message. We all have some ads from our childhood that we still remember and whenever something similar is played, we can instantly recall the ad. The success of that ad can be weighed through its memorability among us.

Though the basic process of idea generation and writing an ad concept may be more or less the same for print, television and digital channels, however, the later stages differ. Let’s begin with a print ad, where the team comes up with an idea or concept, the creative writer will organize and write it down, coming up with taglines, visuals concept, and body copy. Once all of this is finalized, the creative director now implements the idea into visuals. The designer will design different options to represent the same concept in different manners visually through a print ad. Whatever is approved by the client is then published.

For a TVC, the basic process of concept generation is the same, however, production team works side by side with the creative writers to jot down the script and draw the storyboard for the ad. Usually, more than one ideas are presented to the client, with a mockup ad. The finalized concept is then redone. The creative director along with the production team will cast the models, finalize locations and set up the time. If a set needs to be arranged, the art director is involved who would design a set according to the theme and colors. After the shooting, the TVC enters the editing or post-production phase. Editors would compile the clips into a TVC sequence and once the client approves the final product, it is distributed among the TV channels, from whom airtime has been purchased earlier.

Finally, the digital ad concept includes both of the aforementioned processes as it includes digital print ads as well as the video ads. However, the ads are shorter than the TVCs, in some cases may be different than the TVCs. While some businesses want to create a detailed infomercial to be posted over digital channels that would communicate a clearer message.

All in all, the ad concept should aid to the effectiveness of the business and attainability of the set goals.