One of my favorite types of commercials I enjoy creating are cookie cutter commercials. These are commercials where you can simply remove/exchange a graphic or two and it becomes a whole new commercial.
The reason I like these commercials so much is because once you have the piece shot and edited the first time most of the hard work is over. All you have to do now is sit back and make small changes from time to time for the client and collect on the reward i.e. the cash. These types of commercials tend to ensure that you will have at least a somewhat consistant interaction with the client and the more you are able to meet with your clients and do work for them the more money you generally will generate.
I’ll give you an example with the two commercials below as to how a cookie cutter commercial looks and works.
So both of these commercials are essentially the same, they both give out the specific information for their respected expos, but as far as the content it is vague enough that it could be almost any expo across the country.
So how it works is that after I made the first commercial, which I charged the client for; he said that he would want to use this same basic commercial for all of his expos, so we came to an arrangement for what it would cost to change the commercial to fit each of his expos, and it’s a win win for both of us.
It’s a win for him because he gets a commercial for all of his expos at a reasonable price, and I win because I have simple work that usually only takes a couple of hours to create the new commercial for him and I make money off of it.
So I would recommend trying to convince your current and future clients to look into possibly doing cookie cutter commercials if you are into commercial production, because it can be a great source for some residual income in the current economic situation.