Commercials
We make commercials built to survive the skip button — and to keep working on Connected TV, in cinema, on billboards and in the feed. One production day. The whole media stack.
Commercial video production is the making of advertising creative intended to run as paid media — on television, Connected TV, cinema, digital out-of-home or social platforms. DOT Video Agency produces commercials for brands with something to prove, across the Netherlands and Europe, engineered from the brief to run across the full media stack rather than shot for one channel and cropped for the rest.
A commercial differs from a brand film in intent. It exists to be placed against media spend and judged on completion, recall and response — which means it competes with a skip button, a scroll, or a room that did not come to watch an advert.
Because the audience has seen the shape of it before. Sunset. Smiling family. Voiceover explaining a benefit. Logo. Once someone can predict the next four seconds, they stop watching and start waiting for the skip button.
We build on rhythm and aesthetic authority instead. High-resolution cinematography. Custom sound design. The decisions that matter made at storyboard, not rescued in the edit — where the cut lands against the music, how long the opening frame holds, whether sound arrives before the image.
When a competitor undercuts you on price, the safe answer is a discount ad. The safe answer is also the forgettable one. The commercials that work take a position sharp enough that somebody in the approval chain gets nervous — then hold it with enough craft that nobody can argue with the result.
In a world of skip buttons, you have about three seconds to prove your worth before a viewer moves on.
Not one film and some crops. A full media package, planned before the shoot so a single production day serves every placement natively. Sometimes that means 100+ platform-ready deliverables in a day.
Twenty minutes with Tijmen or Jesper will tell you whether a commercial is even the right answer. Sometimes it isn’t, and we’ll say so.
Or email info@madebydot.com | +31 6 52633088
Each channel rewards something different. Plan for all of them at storyboard and one production day covers the lot. Plan for none of them and you get a 16:9 master and a cropping problem.
| Placement | What it rewards | Typical length | Decided at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connected TV | Completion. Lean-back, uninterrupted | 30—60s | Storyboard |
| Cinema | Scale and sound. A captive room | 30—60s | Storyboard |
| Paid social 9:16 | A hook inside two seconds | 6—15s | Storyboard, shot natively |
| Digital out-of-home | Legibility with no audio, short dwell | 6—10s | Storyboard |
| Online video / pre-roll | Surviving the skip point | 15—30s | Storyboard |
A commercial from DOT Video Agency costs €10.000–€50.000. A single-day shoot with cutdowns sits at the lower end. A multi-market campaign across CTV, DOOH, cinema and social sits at the upper end.
Most agencies won’t publish this. We do. You should know before the call whether we are in your range.
What actually moves the number:
Media spend is separate and stays with your media agency. Our budgets are line-itemed — director treatment through to colour grade — not a flat fee with a shrug attached.
A single-day commercial with straightforward post is delivered within 4–8 weeks of wrap. Multi-market campaigns with several language versions run to 5 to 12 weeks. We confirm the timeline at briefing and we hold to it.
Pre-production is the phase clients underestimate and the one that decides the film. On our most research-heavy campaigns it has run a full year before a single frame was shot. Some audiences spot a shallow idea in seconds and never come back.
One shooting window. No second attempt. Every craft decision followed from that constraint — a concept engineered to run in both directions of the route, a deadpan comic register held precisely enough to stay high-end rather than slapstick, and a shot plan that served CTV, cinema, DOOH and social off the same setups. 99.5% completion on Connected TV.
Four content layers, each art-directed for a different audience and a different moment — how-to, lifestyle, studio product, action social. That layering is what gives a young brand the visual range of an established one without the budget of one. The anchor creative peaked at 5.0 ROAS on paid social.
Four markets, four languages, one production. Every asset built natively rather than subtitled afterwards — cinematic film, FPV, original score, motion graphics, OOH and social cutdowns. The research phase ran longer than the shoot, which is the only reason the work survived an audience that reads a shallow idea instantly.
No, and you should be wary of anyone who does both. We produce the creative and deliver to the exact technical spec each placement needs. Planning and buying stay with your media agency, and we work alongside them from the brief so deliverables match the plan instead of being adapted to it afterwards.
Yes, but only if it is planned that way from the storyboard. Camera blocking and frame orientation are designed for both at the same time. Decide it later and you are cropping, which produces compromised horizontal video in a vertical box.
More than most people expect, because in a skippable format the sound often arrives before the image registers. Where the cut lands against the track, and whether the score builds or drops at the three-second mark, is a retention decision rather than a taste decision. That is why we score to the edit rather than cutting to a pre-existing track.
Yes. Grade, mix and master are handled in-house to the standard each channel requires, including the deliverable formats broadcasters and cinema chains specify.
Depends on scope. The model is one production yielding many outputs, never one master resized. A well-planned day can produce 100+ platform-ready deliverables.
Yes, if the variants are designed before the shoot rather than after. Language versions, regional audio and subtitle formatting go into the production plan at brief stage, and we use native speakers rather than translating the script. We have run single productions natively across UK, Dutch and German audiences. Retrofit that after picture lock and you pay twice.
No pitch deck, no account manager. A short conversation with the people who would direct the work.
Or email info@madebydot.com | +31 6 52633088
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