if you're not in the business?

I'm a non-practicing optometrist, and I've written some small copy for offices I've been in...with moderate success...

but I've had this recurrent epiphanic idea for a t.v. commercial, involving an older movie, extremely recognizable... the perfect product to be pitched would be either a premium automobile or a leading beverage.

you'll probably laugh, but i just really "believe" this is the kind of ad that could be a classic, as in "superbowl" quality...

but these companies only seem to take input from their own employees/staffs...

is there no way to freelance an idea like this?
or can i collaborate with a copywriter from a big company and do a fee split or similar arrangement?
or should i divulge it to an attorney, then throw it out there, and when someone turns it into a commercial, sue them?

any help, suggestions, or input is immensely appreciated...tyvm, ruppie

I think you'll find that it's very hard to licence ideas, and you would need to pay an attorney to set up non-disclosure agreements etc. before you pitched your idea to anyone.

Also, what makes you think that your idea would sell more cars/drinks? It seems to me that you have the situation back to front. Surely the normal way of creating an ad is for the client to present their agency with a brief, and then the creative team come with a number of ideas to fulfil that brief and then the client chooses which one they like best. So, even if you successfully pitched your idea to an ad agency, then how will they match the idea with one of their clients' needs?

Maybe someone else has a different perpective - I don't know a huge amount about how ad agencies work.

For what it's worth, I've had hundreds of ideas for products, retail concepts etc. and I've never figured out a way of making them pay. I would need to partner with other huge companies, and they could easily find ways of using my idea without ever paying me. You need to check out Intellectual Property law to see if there is any way of protecting your idea. The problem is, is that you have to explain your idea to someone to get them to buy into it, but the minute you do that, you've effectively transferred the idea from yourself to them, and even if it's morally or legally wrong of them to use it without rewarding you, a large company with more legal clout will probably get away with it because they'll know that you don't have the resources to mount a protracted legal challenge.

Jane