Today’s blog posting is all about me. It has nothing at all do with you, your life, your career, your interests, your needs, your dreams. It’s all about me.
If you didn’t suspect today’s piece in some way is relevant to your life, you wouldn’t be reading this second paragraph.
Why not? Because the opening is all about me.
Among the recent purchases I’ve made are:
• A Macally 2 gigabyte external hard drive storage enclosure
• A prescription medication from Ralph’s Pharmacy
• Some blank DVDs by Sony
• An airline ticket from United Airlines
• A bottle of Maximum Strength Excedrin
On the day I bought the Macally storage enclosure, I didn’t care at all about Macally U.S.A Mace Group, Inc.. But I had a dead laptop and needed to salvage the contents of its hard drive.
Ralph’s Pharmacy? I never give them a thought — except when I want to renew that prescription. Otherwise, in my universe the pharmacy doesn’t even exist.
Do I care about Sony? Uh, no. But I needed to make digital copies of some videos.
Do I care about United Airlines? Are you kidding? Have you flown on United during the past decade?? But…I’m speaking at a conference far away, and I need to get there.
Novartis Consumer Health, Inc.? Y’know, the nice folks who manufacture Excedrin? Frankly, my dear, about them I don’t give a damn. But this headache…
You already know that consumers don’t care about the advertiser; they care about themselves. (You do already know that, right?)
Meanwhile, the opening line of a radio commercial is the commercial for the commercial. It’s your one chance to attract the attention of the targeted listeners.
Beginning the commercial by talking about the advertiser, from the advertiser’s point of view, almost always is very, very…not smart.
So why do so many commercials begin terribly? To wit, this selection from a couple of commercial breaks recorded from a local radio station…
1. Farmers Insurance: Begins with their own name, followed by a nonsensical declaration. (Whatever I was hoping to get today, “ready” wasn’t one of them.)
2. A supermarket made a New Year’s resolution. Uh-huh. Of course it did.
3. Yes, someone actually began a commercial with, “It’s the GMC Holiday Event.” Riveting. Spellbinding. Ain’t nobody touching that dial. (And props to the expensive branding firm that, presumably, came up with the extraordinary name for the event.)
4. You see, she’s repeating a question that, we are to assume, someone just asked her. Problem: In the history of the world, no one ever has asked anyone, “Why do you take Non-Drowsy Claritin?”
5. First, I think the guy’s talking about farm land. Y’know, the land upon which farms can be found. But then it turns out “Farmland” is the name of some product or another, and the guy who’s speaking is spewing B.S.
The “thing” he likes about Farmland is that it works side by side with American farm families and their best-tasting ham and their best-tasting bacon and their best-tasting pork roast? Horsefeathers!
6. WOW! The Southern California Hyundai Dealers’ award really makes my year better!
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Im not sure if you’re “the” God, but you’re definitely “a” god.
You make me think everyday, and thank you for that!
Excellent stuff, Dan. Now I’m going to be paying attention for this mistake in every radio spot I hear!
EXACTLY! Dude, it’s like you were THERE!! I’ve been preaching that for years….nobody EVER BOUGHT A CAR from a dealership because..”They’ve been part of the community for over 20 years”, or ate breakfast somewhere because they heard their eggs were “farm fresh”….
This is why you’re my hero Mr. O’Day……..
ROCK ON –
tjk
pity clients don’t understand this , the award winning commercials are light years ahead of what we dish out , but be fair to the copywriter , clients want a straight forward read , thing is we don’t tell them how to run their business, but we still bow to them or maybe lose the sale
Thank you Dan. If we and our partners could team up and see things from the consumer’s perspective….that’s a good challenge for the day.
Dan, this is the most common opening in commercials where I live, which has 13 stations for 100,000 people. The same mistake is made in most print ads in our newspaper.
As someone who worked as a marketing exec for a company and has studied the industry you are extremely wrong. That Farmland commercial is probably the best radio commercial ive heard in years. Study up on your stuff before you say things that make you look dumb.
So why do so many commercials begin so badly?
In the context of \radio\ (such as it WAS), most copy is written in house by people that are not writers. That is why.
Just my two cents. want change?
Dan, you’re right again. Great examples of not-so-great copy-writing. Here in Atlanta, we had a car dealership and the main thrust of every single piece of advertising they did – print, billboard, radio, tv – was that they were #2, but going to be #1 REALLY SOON!!!
They’re out of business. Go figure.
Give me not PLOP nor FIZZ I want Relief!
Hayden’s comment is laughable. Dan, you are spot on. Again.
Can’t help but notice Hayden said he \worked as a marketing exec\ and \studied the industry\ both in past tense suggesting that he no longer does either. Given his conclusions, it’s not hard to understand why. You can work as a ditch digger, too, but if you hold the wrong end of the shovel, you’re not going to get a great result no matter how much you study it.