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HOW CAN “BAD” RADIO ADVERTISING SUCCEED?

At a couple of recent radio advertising seminars I’ve been asked, “Why do so many businesses continue to do such terrible radio advertising?”

Both times, “car dealers” were used as examples of businesses that spend huge amounts of money to broadcast lousy advertising.

I offered the answers I’ve shared here previously — ignorance, ego, incompetence, naivete, etc.

I also included another reason that I don’t think I’ve mentioned here before:

In some cases, even bad advertising is better than no advertising at all.

Screaming “Ed’s Used Cars! Ed’s Used Cars” 20 times a day probably isn’t the smartest use of the medium.

But screaming those words 20 times per day for a year will make Ed’s Used Cars more familiar to your listeners than if Ed never advertises to them at all.

And everything else being equal, the car dealer you’ve heard of is more likely to get your business than one you’ve never heard of.

So the car dealer does generate some business via those annoying, abusive commercials.

And the car dealer thinks, “I sure do know how to make a radio commercial.”

What he doesn’t know is how much more effective his advertising could be.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Tad Shackles September 9, 2013, 8:47 am

    Agreed. BUT at the same time those “bad local commercials” that go viral are WAY better than a traditionally “good” ad.

    I mean, they have a TV show dedicated to the most hilarious commercials. Rhett and Link on YouTube have millions and millions of hits and their series of intentionally bad local TV commercials. They travel the nation and produce intentionally awful commercials and they kill in these markets, working wonders for these places.

    So I guess I would say if commercials were traditionally graded on a 1 – 10, 5 would be the worst you could be and 1 & 10 would be equals.

  • Round Mound of Sound September 9, 2013, 12:37 pm

    But what percentage of bad local commercials go viral? I’d venture a guess that the number begins with a decimal point, and the first digit higher than zero is several positions to the right of it.

    We’ve got a bedding store in my market whose TV spots are so bad they have been featured on Tru TV’s “World’s Dumbest.” They’re bad, the client knows they’re bad. He makes them bad on purpose, trying to accomplish exactly what the previous poster is talking about. He might get a little more name recognition out of it, but it’s not the good type; it’s the type where people groan out loud when you mention the name of his store. It’s the kind that makes me not want to be seen walking into or out of his business. Don’t get me wrong, this guy is a seriously nice fellow & would do anything for you. It’s just that he’s just projecting a horribly bad image for his business & driving people away instead of attracting them.

    And that’s someone who’s TRYING to make bad spots that go viral. Most bad spots are just bad spots that DON’T go viral.

    I’d say on a traditionally graded scale of 1-10, one should *always* try to make their spots a 6 or above (in other words, above average). No way could I ever honestly tell a client that a 1 and a 10 are equals.

  • Dennis Schoch September 9, 2013, 6:38 pm

    It seems to me that most of the really bad radio commercials I’ve heard and TV commercials I’ve seem seem to involve the company owners ego requiring that either they, their spose, or children or in some cases the entire family have to be in the ads and yes some ads are better than no ads. Although an ad featuring an owner, who, lets say, may slur over words as if having had one too many, would likely make me want to avoid them.