Television Commercials

Pathlight delivers captivating commercials that will
get you noticed on TV and cable.

When targeting a broad audience for your marketing or publicity campaign, one of the best ways to ensure a far reach is through television and cable. Though new media like the web get most of the attention today, traditional advertising outlets are often more effective at reaching large audiences fast. This efficiency can outweigh the costs associated with producing and airing the commercial.

Unlike video for the Internet, television commercials must have very high production quality and be structured to maximize emotional impact within seconds. Both of these things require excellent storytelling skills, a keen understanding of how to draw the viewer's attention. Pathlight excels in all these areas because of our background in Hollywood moviemaking.

Client Case Study

TV commercials are a great way for non-profit organizations to increase awareness of social issues. These kinds of commercials are called public service announcements, or PSAs. Most TV stations air PSAs at no cost to non-profit organizations during unpurchased airtime.

Oasis USA, the local division of the global organization headquartered in London, came to Pathlight to increase awareness of the growing problem of human trafficking, which is essentially modern slavery. Though it is an international issue, the most surprising thing about it to many Americans is that it occurs right here in the US. Lack of awareness about this domestic problem is one of the major factors that hinders the fight against it.

Oasis saw a specific need to increase awareness of human trafficking in the Chinese American community. With funding from the US Department of Health and Human Services, they decided to produce a PSA with Pathlight to air on local Chinese television.

During the development stages, Pathlight took the project in a direction that would help Chinese Americans connect with the issue. Instead of just telling them about the problem, we showed it from their own immigrant perspective. These people who are trafficked into the States have been lured by the promise of prosperity, or the so-called "American Dream," just like legal immigrants. By telling a story in the PSA from the perspective of immigrants, the PSA maximizes its connection to the intended target audience.

Oasis USA had no prior experience making PSAs but Pathlight took care of the entire process, from start to finish. We worked with them to write the script, handled the budgeting, scheduling, and casting, shot the film, edited it, and recorded narration and music for it.

Cost-Effective Marketing with Commercial Production

The original version of the PSA has a Mandarin narration for airing on Chinese television. However, Oasis also wanted us to make an English version so that they could use it for other purposes, such as conferences, fundraising, and the web. By choosing to produce a TV commercial, they wisely maximized their marketing dollars. While TV commercials can be shown at multiple venues, other formats, such as web promos, cannot because of the time limitation of commercial breaks. Thus, the TV commercial format proved to be a very cost-effective choice.

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