Space City: the home of affordable television advertising

Victor van Amerongen, Creative Director, Space City

For many UK companies – even large and established ones – the prospect of advertising on TV can be daunting. There is a general perception that TV is only for the big boys – brands with at least a couple of million to spend on creating an advert and buying airtime.

Space City has tried to change this. Since 1992 it has been producing cost-effective TV ads for a wide range of companies, including many that are using the medium for the first time.

It has pioneered new ways to make adverts for relatively modest budgets without sacrificing production values.

To put this in figures, in a world where the average UK TV ad costs around £180,000, Space City makes ads that are predominantly in the £20,000 to £80,000 range.

The company was founded by Victor van Amerongen, a former BBC current affairs producer, and Amanda Alexander, a composer of TV signature tunes.

It has grown steadily over the years and now ranks at number 27 in the Campaign top 100 UK advertising agencies, with annual billings in 2020 of £52 million.

Space City has been based in Hammersmith, West London, since its inception, although it now also has an office in Manchester. Investment in its facilities has been one of the key ways it has managed to cut the cost of production; the company now owns three 4K edit suites, a recording studio, a casting studio and extensive in-house graphics capabilities.

A large proportion of Space City’s adverts are DRTV (direct response) or BRTV (brand response), meaning they include some sort of mechanism to generate immediate interaction from viewers. Most commonly the call-to-action will be to go to a company’s website, download an app, respond by text or make a call.

This accountability means that most adverts can be carefully tracked to ascertain how well they are working, including the number and quality of responses, which in turn gives the advertiser information about their cost-per-response (CPR) or return-on-investment (ROI).

Space City’s clients include many well-known brands, including Alzheimer’s Society, British Heart Foundation, British Seniors, Emerald Waterways, Greater Anglia, Kärcher, Kenwood Travel, Palmer’s, Post Office, RSPCA, Scope, Unilever, Villa Plus, Virgin Experience Days and Wowcher.

The company made the first-ever advert for a price comparison website, Confused.com. It has also created several memorable musical jingles, including tunes for Moonpig and GoCompare.

Space City offers advertisers a complete script-to-screen service. Based on a brief, the creative team will devise a number of script ideas and advertising concepts. Once an ad is in production, they will then take care of all aspects of filming, including casting, wardrobe, location hire, crew sourcing, post-production editing, voiceover recording and music composing.

So, if you’ve thought about TV advertising but you haven’t yet taken the plunge, why not call Space City now?

Put your business on TV with a cost-effective TV commercial from Space City.