Recently in this space a very successful voice over artist complained about the currently common practice of removing virtually every breath from a radio commercial, in order to squeeze in more words.
Here’s an example. As an experiment, after you hit the “play” button look away from your computer monitor and listen to this spot…just once.
Okay, how many selling points can you recall?
I’d try to help you out by listing them all for you, but they went by so fast that it would take 10 minutes of stopping and resuming for me to compile that list.
Why Is It Stupid To Remove All The Breaths From A Commercial?
For however many thousands of years that human beings have communicated via speech, they’ve also…
…breathed.
For the entire history of humankind, speech has included pauses for breath. Not vocalizing for half a second while inhaling is not “dead air.” It is an integral part of speech itself.
So Why Is This Stupid Practice So Common?
A commercial such as this one requires that every breath be removed to make room for the far too many words that inhabit the copy. In other words:
Bad copywriting.
Yes, I will be the first to point out that often the Incompetent Account Executive insists that the copywriter include Far Too Many details, which requires Far Too Many words.
The radio salesperson, in turn, would like to blame the client:
“The client insisted!”
Sorry, in this case the buck stops with the account exec. It’s the account exec’s job to educate the client. The account exec supposedly is the radio advertising expert.
In reality, of course, most account execs have been taught how to sell radio advertising but know virtually nothing about the fundamentals of good radio copywriting. That includes, alas, the legions of account execs who are required to write their own copy…even though they don’t know how.
“But the customer is always right!”
No, of course not. Often the customer is wrong, and professionals don’t let clients throw their money away because they’re too frightened of the clients to educate them.
This particular commercial probably is the result of an account exec who doesn’t know enough to be able to educate the client and of a poor copywriter. (They might, in fact, be the same person.)
You need listen only four seconds into the spot to recognize bad copywriting: They give a call to action (going to their website) before they give listeners a reason for taking that action.
Pretty basic, huh? Obvious, even?
But apparently beyond the professional education of the person who wrote the copy and of the management that allowed such a mess to go on the air.
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The buck DOES stop with the sales manager. My suspicion is that this is not a battle that production directors are willing to have with the sales department. They are probably going along to get along to keep their jobs for just one more day. Ineffective copy like this will not work for the client. They’ll sour on radio, and sales will move on to the next buy. The slash and burn method of churning clients, rather than helping them build an image and grow their business is epidemic. ….sad 🙁
I really think most clients wouldn’t have a clue if the spot worked or not …
In the example, that’s not totally bad copywriting at all…that’s a 30 that needs to be a 60. far too crammed with contra copy that needs to be there but your only given 30 secs to say it.
I might add the talent does a fantastic job in the read and the slight overlap of the voice gets it in 30.
I might add a couple cliche’s like “that’s right” and “right now” right now is a call to action, but also emphasized at the end with “this offer is limited” so it’s up for debate if you really need it, but dropping it wouldn’t give you back much time anyway.
As for the department debate sales vs production, depends on the station. I can only imagine the time crunch in the US with production directors actually having to write spots. I never did that, as we had writers as a rule in canada, but it wasn’t easy. It’s far too often a factory to get em voiced, produced, and on the air to waste time battling with sales over copy issues. With the announcer insisting, I would push back, but it just slows down the assembly line.
Bad copy is all too often because of a laundry list of things and sales resistant to say otherwise. No, the customer is far from right in any situation, be it radio ads or selling shoes. Sales pressure to make quotas can bring out the sales weasel in them all, not to mention an overwhelming client list on their plate. It’s the factory mentality all over again.
From the way I see it, the sales exec should be the one to advise the client for potential issues with the copy, and if the client pushes back, it should escalate to the sales manager to resolve. That’s just good customer service.
Wordy spots just get lost in the clutter of a stopset.
Words that look good on paper don’t necessarily translate well to the hear. I remember a price/product point for a weeklyspot that hit the air using “regularly” at least 3 times in a 30…hard on the head.
The whole system broke down. The intern that wrote this spot should have been asked for a rewrite. Why did the Account Exec green light this spot? Where was the producer? At the end of the day it’s the producer who is editing the breaths out of the spot? The producer should have said to both the writer and AE that instead of editing the spot it should have been re-written… create a pool of spots even. Where’s the PD? Isn’t the PD ultimately responsible for what comes out of the speakers? Then again… if the PD is doing an on-air shift, AND programming stuff… “horrors” like this (and many others) fall through the cracks. If the writer is the producer it’s easier this way. When radio stations are reduced to too few people doing far too many things… this is what you get and this is what you deserve. The bitter irony is… people wonder why the audience is shrinking?
Have heard several like this in my area, and I generally tune them out because if they are talking THAT fast, they are intentionly trying to hide something inside of the pace of the spot. Because if you have to listen to it say….20 times to understand it….most listeners will not spend the time and effort to listen to it.
We’ve been fighting the “information that just has to be in there” battle for as long as I can remember. Dan O’ nailed it here: “The buck stops with the account exec. It’s the account exec’s job to educate the client. The account exec supposedly is the radio advertising expert.” Would you stand behind an auto mechanic as he fixed your car and tell him what it needed to make it run properly? Would you tell your dentist what tool to use when he fills a cavity? Well, of course not. But for some reason time and again we allow our clients to tell us how they want their spot written and when they don’t see results, they conclude radio doesn’t work. Sigh. The question should be: How can we educate sales people to educate their clients?
agreed. but unless you have support from the GM standing firm on down it’s not going to happen. I’ve seen so many “weasels” bend the rules in a rush to get crap on the air, instead of spending time educating and teaching the benefits of a good campaign, I got jaded. I still remember when I was working overnights before I got into mainly production (I was a jack of all trades at one station) one of the “weasels” called in and wanted to get a spot on the air for a client he was at at the time….at 2:30 am (obviously a bar) I said I can’t do that…he said…”oh you can write it in the log” eventually I stood firm and he backed down because I wasn’t playing games. The kicker was the “weasel” was the top sales guy consistently at the station. More then a few people in creative (copy) hated him for his last minute crap….he eventually went into local politics at one point…LOL!
All good points … but as the air talent, I think we should also take the initiative to edit it to where the point(s) get across while sounding human. Ususally, I will cut the spot the way they want it, then cut another with careful editing and let them hear THAT before it goes in rotation. Not only can you show the production (message) value grow exponentially, but it shows huge concern for the client too. i.e., customer service.
Now that’s a option i’m all for….2 versions.
Guilty as charged – from a production point of view and copywriting.
The thing is, to find a nice balance between the two. Leave in the occassiona breathe – or at least a pause. But still relay the information.
It’s a hard ask of the Sales dudes – they have to sell, sell, sell in this climate. Then – we have to polish a t**d to write what they want and then again – make a silk purse out of a pigs ear. Balance. That’s what I’m now striving for.
I know I’m late to the dance – as always, just ask my wife – but for what it’s worth here’s my 2 cents. Removing the breathing is not a good idea ever. The brain recognizes when things sound fake, and the instant response is to reject the sound.
However, I have asthma. And depending on the day my breathing can sound worse than a vacuum cleaner. So I remove my breathing… but I leave the pauses.
Shorten the copy! All this does is prove to the listener that the advertiser is so full of themselves that they have totally lost all their ability to respect their customer’s intelligence.
The slogan in radio advertising may be KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid – but that doesn’t mean all the emphasis should be on the last word of that slogan.
I think the real issue here is the poor writing/weak copy. If all the breaths were left in and this message was a few seconds longer, would it be magically transformed from ineffective to effective? From forgettable to memorable? Nah.
And fast talking, in and of itself, doesn’t automatically mean “bad, ineffective spot.” Do you have a Jimmy John’s sandwich shop in your area? Their slogan is “Freaky Fast, Freaky Good” and in their “Fast Ed” ad campaign the fast-talk is integral to the message. And I can understand every word because their spots always have a storyline that grabs my attention and makes me want to listen closely (and, of course, spots that incorporate a story AND use humor effectively always have a huge advantage over the all-t00-common fact-based, informational yawners that dominate the airwaves). To hear one of the early Jimmy John’s “Fast Ed” spots visit usradioworks.com, click “Listen To Samples” and then click the spot called “Speeding Ticket.” Their other spot samples are also worth a listen (no, I’m in no way affiliated with these guys; I just have a lot of respect for their talent and creativity).
It also should be noted that neither Dan nor any of us who left comments are anywhere near the target this message is trying to reach. After listening a BUNCH of times to get to the meat of the message (You’re right, Dan; it did take about 10 minutes of stopping and resuming to catch what they were going for) the radio station 94.7 The Wave is promoting giveaways and discounted gift cards for Glen Ivy Spa. For further research I Googled the radio station and the spa, and this is a total “chick” promotion on a total “chick” station all the way – I mean, I’ve worked for a few of your typical AC “female friendly” stations, and I think The Wave makes them look like Active Rock. If you look at The Wave’s air staff they have a female morning duo with a female producer (How often do you see that?), female midday show, female afternoon show, female night show…oh, and eventually we have a dude on overnights. And prizes for pampering at Glen Ivy Spa? I think the ONLY way this spot would’ve spoken to me is if it said, “You, yes you, Neal Angell, have a 1 in 2 chance of winning this prize…you do NOT have to do ANYTHING – including filling out some online form – to qualify…and yes, you can give it to your wife if you win!”
Yes, as far as I’m concerned, this is a weak message. But if I were an adult female, a regular listener to The Wave, and already very familiar with the benefits of Glen Ivy Spa? Then I could see this message being pretty effective…if it had a LOT of frequency.
This is a practice that I too, have been guilty of. HOWEVER, there is a right way to do it, and a wrong way to do it. You’ll notice that in this example, there are at least two places where one line ends, then overlaps the beginning of the next… but not on every line. This is just lazy editing. The RIGHT way to do it is to keep it consistent.