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FINAL ENTRIES: Make A Better "Target" Radio Commercial

As witnessed by the slew of news vehicles camped outside my office (and certain hitherto respected journalistic luminaries relieving themselves on the lush grounds of my vast estate), this is the final day of my “Can You Write Better Than This Junk” contest.

Rob Dungee took an interesting approaching, intertwining his personal life with the commercial message.

Rob Dungee:

Rod Rawlings says:

“This was fun! Good idea. Maybe you’ll do it again?”

Rod Rawlings:

There you have it, dear readers/judges. Thirty entries, all submitted in good faith and with high hopes.

Your critiques?

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  • adamg March 21, 2009, 2:04 am

    I Like these..Great Voice Texture for both…Yet for me ..and this is me the guy whose dog is too loud…I would say these are Airable…Good news….Would I buy them as The Target buyer..no I would think they are too radio sounding and as you know a slew of spots run one after another…I want something that cracks the air…that takes Driver Don and Trucker Ann out of the commercial listener mode and puts the content into their ears and computing……..My goal was achieved by being so not radio that I scored big time…Maybe you guys scored big time..In a day of radio plus hd radio…new media entries, styles…Vcasting and all you guys sound marketable and in a niche somewhere……Suggestion?:step up your vocal passion a bit…be human..it is ok to do that..Dan The Man has been so kind to air all these spots instead of blogging his mind…thanks for the sacrifice Dan -ad

  • Scott Snailham March 21, 2009, 3:10 am

    If you have radio sales people selling radio ads and radio announcers doing the reading and radio copywriters (or in the US production directors apparently actually write the copy..that’s kinda crazy!) writing the copy in a factory that is usually a radio station, you’re turning out radio ads.

    For anyone in commerical radio, so absorbed in the industry, the business term “think outside the box” is truly hard to do. on the one hand, you have to keep piece with the client and meet deadlines, you have to relate to joe blow average when you have few ideas except what demographics tells you, and the hard core listeners always wanting to voice your opinion tell you. so you have to keep it simple, yet you want to be “creative”? and still wear well on heavy rotation? come on.

    If you want creative, hire an agency. What it comes down to is getting the message across and getting it to stick. That can truly be difficult in the sea of ads and messages any average person gets hit with on an average day, not to mention the persons actual workload at work (I can get 100’s of emails a day in my job) As individuals we are bombarded with information daily. Sometimes you have to tune it out.

    The original spot I wouldn’t call junk, I’d call it forgettable. It got the message across, it did get you to act if you actually wanted to save money, but didn’t do the del from WKRP “run jump crawl I don’t care just get down here” type call to action. That can backfire. Overall we’ve had some great approaches here but largely doing the same thing, no better, no worse then the original.

  • Jonathan Lumley March 22, 2009, 11:33 pm

    oh I just don’t know anymore. Some interesting entries and I agree, some that aren’t much better than the original. But some really have that special something……Dan – time to show us how you would do it….