The current issue of my Radio Advertising Letter:
• Features a critique of a radio commercial for an Indian restaurant
• Addresses the all-too-common practice of throwing in “Follow us on Facebook/Twitter” at the end of a commercial for no good reason.
This post is for my subscribers to use to add their own comments, thoughts, rejoinders, etc.
Comments on this entry are closed.
It’s the typical radio style restaurant ad – one that mentions everything but the reason you should go there for a meal. I’m afraid I agree with Dan – this ad needs a good reworking
Mmmm, now I’m back in trouble again.
I’ve been using mentions of websites to convince clients not to include phone-numbers.
Now that I’ve lost that tool, there’s a whole new hurdle to mature myself over.
Quick question, if I may, about the statement “…choice paralyzes response…”.
Does that apply to mentioning more than one special offer in a supermarket commercial as well?
I recently had a client ask if we can do 3 live reads and only mention one product per read. I advised to mention all three to give a sense of “savings all over the store”.
Did I get that wrong?
fyi, Thunder Bay is an 18-hour drive from Toronto – not coincidentally close. 🙂
What kind of approach could be used to get the uninitiated to try an Indian restaurant? I’m in my late 40’s and never tried one — no one’s given me a good enough reason to.
Thanks for the comments Dan. I should have elaborated a bit more on the client’s request.
Being that it’s the only Indian restaurant here, they have a corner on the Indian food lovers of Canada’s Lakehead. The commercial was designed to attract people who haven’t tried it before.
They strongly stressed the need to sell the “experience” of dining there. Which wasn’t easy for me to parse.
And I have to add: their head chef Vivek who’d spent his entire life in India until just a few years ago commented, “sounds just like India!” when he heard it. So, maybe not an authentic India, but perhaps a romanticized one?
Thanks again Dan.
So you’ve spent the first :25 of message convincing a listener that client X will solve their sandwich problem. When a listener is ready to react in the digital age, what are they more likely to do first? Rush to client’s (convenient) location, make phone call to stranger (what was the number?) or look at menu on (clientsname.com) website?
While savoring the clients pastrami over the internet is not possible…yet, I do believe that website mention right after landmark locator as the final :05 can be very effective: it leaves you with the business’ name as top-of-mind, while at the same time provides a comfortable quick reaction point for the listener to begin their relationship with the client.
Do I win the run-on sentence award?
Ah yes, this commercial is trying too hard to sell the experience of dining in an Indian restaurant when what I’m interested in, as a consumer, is the food!
Often the client is so excited and enthused about what they have to offer they aren’t able to see things from the customer’s viewpoint.
This makes things tricky for the writer 🙁
If the client wants people to sample their restaurant, and only have budget for one week of radio … I say promote the beejeebers out of some sort of sampling event. Make it FREE, tie in a charity component (maybe the food bank), and give patrons a discount coupon for their next visit. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it!