“Fast Talking Is Good”
During your career someone might have told you that fast-talking radio commercials that squeeze in as many words as possible are good, because “studies show people listen more closely when you speak faster.”
Don’t believe it.
In that study, a dozen volunteer college students were asked to listen to one of three audio recordings: one of a person speaking at a “normal” rate of speed, one speaking more slowly than normal, and one speaking faster than normal.
Then each experimental subject was tested to see how much of the speaker’s content they retained.
In that study, students who heard a person speaking faster than usual scored better in retention.
To generalize the results from that experimental setting to that of a typical radio listener is foolish.
The experimental setting in no way resembles the way people listen to the radio.
They don’t hear it in a psychology lab, with instructions to listen closely.
They listen to the radio with, at best, half an ear. The rest of their attention is focused on the traffic ahead or on their own interior dialog.
Ignore psychological studies of dubious value. (Anyone who ever earned a degree in Psychology will vouch for that. We psych majors were involuntary guinea pigs for many a specious study.)
A radio commercial is nothing more than a story — told in the first, second or third person, 30 or 60 seconds long. (Or 10, 20….)
It’s a story.
Think of someone you know who tells stories well — perhaps a friend, perhaps a famous performer or comedian.
Think of one of their best stories, and imagine them telling it right now….and notice how they’re speaking slowly and deliberately, pausing for dramatic effect, for emphasis, for the overall flow of the story.
Is it possible to create a successful, results-producing commercial using a fast talker? Sure.
But only when the fast talking somehow fits the entire selling approach of the spot — not when the announcer has to speed up his delivery to squeeze 55 seconds of verbiage into a 30-second frame.
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I’ve always been a fast talker. I had a great PD once that said, “Pretend each word is a sentence. Don’t start the next ’til you’ve finished the last completely. It didn’t slow me down, but it did make me clearer. The PD that slowed me down was the PD that told me to put a mirror in front of me on the board easel. Not to see my whole face, just my mouth. I’m still a fast talker, but watching myself talk so fast was unnerving and it slowed me down considerably.