(PRESS RELEASE) SALT LAKE CITY, UT – Ascend Marketing, the company behind www.jewelersmarketinggems.com, a website providing turnkey marketing programs for jewelers, has announced plans to create a campaign of six high-quality, professionally produced TV ads that will be licensable by jewelers throughout North America.
“The problem for most jewelers is that they can’t afford to spend $10,000 or $20,000 on producing a top-quality television commercial,” says Ascend President Jim Ackerman. “So their spots are made locally, not very well-conceived, poorly written, cheaply produced, and don’t work particularly well.
“Their other option is to buy in to canned spots produced for the industry. But most of these are comparatively low-budget ads as well, with less-than-ideal scripts and production values.”
Ascend’s plan is to pay for the original production with a unique approach to crowdfunding that will ultimately allow a small, select group of jewelers a multi-year license to the commercials at as little as no cost to them.
The spots and the crowdfunding opportunity will be introduced to jewelers through a series of 45-minute webinars. Here’s the schedule:
- Tuesday, April 3, 2 p.m. Eastern
- Thursday, April 12, 2 p.m. Eastern
- Wednesday, May 2, 2 p.m. Eastern
According to Ackerman, “These commercials would normally cost upwards of $30,000 each – perhaps much more – if produced individually. But we can achieve substantial savings by shooting the entire collection at once. Our idea is to have a small group of retail jewelers front the production costs for a fraction of what they’d pay for producing just one of these videos on their own. Not only will those jewelers have a minimum of three years rights to the videos in their protected territories, but we will also reimburse the first few for their entire investment, from license fees paid for use of the commercials by other, non-competing jewelers. We expect the contributing jewelers to recover their investment within the first year.”
Ascend is not trying to make money on the productions up front. The budget will go to initial production expenses.
Ackerman admits his series of six ads – to be tagged The Tear & The Tickle Campaign – will substantially be an upgraded version of the canned-spot approach, but with clever scripts, network TV-quality production values, and the flexibility to use the ads for branding and for direct response offers.
“People remember how they felt and therefore, who helped them feel that way. These videos will elicit an emotional response from viewers. Hence, the tear and tickle; that emotional tearing up, or warm tickle in the belly,” Ackerman says.
The series of commercials will include spots for:
- Engagement
- Christmas
- Valentine’s Day
- Mother’s Day
- Birthday
- Anniversary
In addition to use in television advertising, the videos will be adaptable for use on jeweler websites and social media as well, further expanding their promotional utility and improving the value of the jeweler’s investment.
All six scripts have already been written and will be discussed in the webinars. Ascend plans to have the productions completed and ready for branding by the individual stores in time for the 2018 holiday selling season.
The goal is to have the crowdfunding in place by May, with shooting to take place in June or July. The spots should be ready for release by late August to mid-September.
Register for the introductory webinars here.