A Loyal Reader Writes:
“Here is my dilemma. I have been a copywriter/production director at a small-market radio station cluster for eight years. I write and produce copy for the LISTENER, as opposed to the client. I feel it is my job to keep our listeners tuned in during the stopsets. After all, what’s the main reason our listeners have tuned in? TO BE ENTERTAINED.
“Therefore, I try so desperately to give our clients creative commercials that will keep our listeners tuned in.
“Dan, trying to achieve this in a small market is no easy task. Let me re-phrase that….It’s IMPOSSIBLE!
“Do you have any suggestions how to make our clients understand that if we put a commercial on the air that provides some kind of entertainment value or leaves some kind of impact, the listener is more likely to stay tuned in and, hopefully, patronize the client’s business?
“They seem to think the laundry lists and phone numbers and address and same-ole-same-ole cliches will do the trick. Doing things differently around here is like breaking one of the Ten Commandments. I want our radio station to be compared to the Super Bowl — I want us to become known for our commercials! I want our clients’ traffic to increase as a result of that.
“HELP!!!! Whatever you respond, I will forward to our sales staff. Thank you!”
I respectfully disagree vigorously with your point-of-view.
You should be writing and producing commercials designed to produce results for the client, not to entertain your listeners.
Your clients are gambling their money on your station’s ability to help them make money. For some of them, this is very much a life-or- death situation insofar as their businesses are concerned.
When your salespeople convinced them to advertise on your station, they did not promise, “If you give us money, we’ll try to make commercials that entertain our listeners.” Instead, they promised to increase in-store traffic and/or otherwise make the client’s cash register ring.
The station already should have in place commercial guidelines to protect the station’s overall sound and image, and clearly you should adhere to those guidelines. But your sole goal should be to create commercials that make money for the advertisers.
Also, you are laboring under a horrible misconception if you think the only way to maintain the listeners’ interest in a commercial is to “entertain.” All you need to do is make the commercial messages interesting. That could be mean: Funny….Dramatic….Shocking…. Provocative….Emotional….Anything that involves the listener. And, above all, relevant to their lives.
And that could simply be a single voice asking, “Have you been trying unsuccessfully to lose weight?”
Do you have any suggestions how to make our clients understand that if we put a commercial on the air that provides some kind of entertainment value or leaves some kind of impact, the listener is more likely to stay tuned in and, hopefully, patronize the clients’ business?
You’re talking about communicating to the client, “Hey, there’s a real danger here that no one will stay tuned long enough to hear your message!”
A commercial shouldn’t attempt to provide “some kind of entertainment value” or “some kind of impact.” It should be designed to produce specific defined results: to get people to call to request the free information booklet. To get people to come to the dealership and test drive the vehicle being advertised. To come to the restaurant on Wednesday evenings.
We do agree on one thing: Laundry lists street addresses and local retail phone numbers are typical ingredients of bad commercials. And there are ways to teach clients about the follies of their bad advertising.
I can’t believe you’d aspire to being the Super Bowl of radio commercials. The Super Bowl has become infamous for squandering scores of millions of dollars on advertising that sometimes entertains, sometimes wins awards…but almost never helps the advertiser in any way.
What I get from your question mostly is this:
Like most people in your position, you’re a radio person who was given the title of Production Director but who really doesn’t know much about advertising and has not taken it upon himself to acquire a professional-level education in that subject. So you just sort of “wing it,” trying to cope with ridiculous deadlines and trying to make entertaining commercials but not necessarily commercials that provide a positive return on the advertiser’s investment.
And I’ll wager you and your employer have never had a single meeting in which one of you said, “Dammit, we’ve got to find ways to produce better results for our advertisers!”
I offer these thoughts because you asked for my opinion, not to make you feel bad or to insult you.
But allow me to be the first to say this to you:
Radio advertising is not an exercise in creativity. Radio advertising is Mass Salesmanship.
And you should be focusing every ounce of your abilities on selling, not on entertaining.
Comments on this entry are closed.
duh…entertaining.
If you ALWAYS try to entertain with commercial writing, and put that criteria up at #1, you will often fall to the type of commercial that leaves the listener without imprint on WHO, or WHAT BUSINESS you are talking about. Remember the “Where’s The Beef” TV commercial decades ago? Highly entertaining, but the imprint of which hamburger joint they were talking about largely failed. “Wendy’s” spent millions on the campaign…people laughed…but no one really made the connection. IF, on the other hand, you ALWAYS remember you are SELLING and BRANDING, and put those at #1…and follow Dan’s guidelines… you will succeed most of the time. There are all kinds of cool, innovative ways to write with selling at #1.
There’s no argument that getting results should be the primary objective of your work. However, “results” and “entertainment” are not, necessarily, mutually exclusive.
“Loyal Reader” would benefit greatly from going on sales calls with station sellers, as well as learning more about sales psychology and process. A thorough understanding of why the merchant is buying access to the audience , coupled with creative skills will lead to better results for both advertisers and listeners.
Advertisers buy ears. Talent brings and keeps ears. Stations have an image that categorize the ears you will get.
Without audience this discussion is moot. I have never met a listener who tuned in just for the commercials, but I have heard of many that learned of new shops, new sales, new events through commercials. And I know the ads that support the talent, are congruent to marketplace and respect the listener are the most successful advertisers, too. They produce the most sales for the advertiser.
Sometimes that is entertaining, sometimes informative, sometimes inspirational.
The advertiser has some responsibility to control its message. I realize in small markets you don’t get national agencies producing spots (whether that is good or bad is another story), but just like the station, the advertiser has a business that has an image and must give approval for what airs.
Whoever produces the spot should take into account who is listening and who is paying. Then give the advertiser something to approve that makes them fit in, stand out and especially for the listener to take some action (visit, do, call, buy).
All the parties need to get results for this to be a continuous process.
Neither… I suggest that our job is relating. Good advertising is relating- letting listeners know of products and services that may benefit them… providing our advertisers with a return on their investment. And, considering that iPods and satellite radio can play music as well or better than we can… the relating we do to our listeners between the tunes is what keeps the ears in place.
I agree, duh,,, entertaining.
Selling ..motivating the listener I dare say. If you can entertain them while you do that ..so much the better.
I think as a script writer/sales person what one fails to understand is to maintain the balance between something totally commercial and something that’s entertaining
Like I had a bunch of sales guys who come up to me and ask for a spot of 15 seconds … Make it humourous, with all the details of the client and the list never ends and the final result is mumbo jumbo…
Common where will you get your ROI when your spot is speeding off like a bullet train you can’t and that’s again the complaint that the client got no enquiries, no walk ins .. Apart from that when a client owns upto an image these days the image is rather quirky and not calculated …they try recreating the imagery of the same on air on radio and it falls on its face totally..
We should simply lighten up and make good sounding and witty creatives rather than a rushing stream which we call a jingle…
I agree with most of what is said here, but to be devil’s advocate for a second with respect to Steve, I believe you are wrong on the Wendy’s commercial; it was not a failure at all but a resounding success for Wendy’s. In one copy writing course I took, they showed the numbers of how that “entertaining” spot increased sales dramatically for Wendy’s. It was entertaining but the message was clear. And in recent times, Old Spice. “Hello ladies” has also increased sales for Old Spice (I think I read one figure 500%). Pure entertainment.