DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

Often a reader of this blog will post a response that disagrees with something I said.

Usually I don’t offer a rebuttal, because the “Comments” feature doesn’t exist so I can argue with my valued readers.

But sometimes a comment does raise an issue that’s worth further explanation. Hence, this Friday tradition of Responding To Something Somebody Said Somewhere Else On This Blog At Some Time.

In response to my statement that it’s in the best interests of both the audience and the radio personality for the host to give his/her name frequently, someone (identified as “Names Are Overrated”) said:

“If you have a strong personality and actually have content to deliver, your name is an afterthought. The focus should be on the average non-radio listener. We want them to have an enjoyable, memorable, experience listening to the station.

“And to address your radio analogy.. I’ve been to tons of fun parties, talking to very interesting people and never did catch their name… and ya know what? I’m ok with that. I had fun and remembered the party fondly.”

Why would a radio station focus on the average non-radio listener? Ratings don’t come from non-radio listeners; they come from habitual radio listeners.

The parties you’ve attended where you spoke with interesting people but never learned their names:

As much as I stress the importance of focusing on the audience’s experience, you also need to serve the radio station’s needs.

While it makes no difference to those anonymous people you spoke to at the party if you know their names, there’s not a radio station in the world that can succeed by offering a one-time pleasant experience to listeners who never return.

May I safely assume there have been times when you’ve enjoyed a conversation with someone you just met and did make a point of learning that person’s name and, possibly, how to reach them sometime in the future?

That’s the quality of experience a good radio station provides to its listeners. It makes them want to know the name of the station, the name of the host, and the dial position…so they can return and continue to enjoy that relationship.

Gary Owens

Years ago at a PD Grad School, I asked Gary Owens what it was like to have Chuck Blore as a program director at KFWB/Los Angeles — back when KFWB had 47% of the L.A. radio audience.

At that time, remember, Gary had the #1 morning show in L.A., a brilliant wit, an innovative mind, and an amazing voice. (Still true today for all of his personal attributes.)

His answer?

“He made us feel like we could do anything!”

And so they did.

The greatest gift a PD can give to an air talent is….

Confidence.

This is the 6th installment of a series of ruminations on radio copywriting that Dick Orkin and I began…uh, five installments ago.

"In Happier Times" — Dick Orkin & Dan O'Day

Advertising, Passion and Creativity

by Dick Orkin

So, you read my piece entitled “Dreaming In Commercials,” and your response is, “ENOUGH! WHERE’S THE NUTS-AND-BOLTS STUFF?”

A reasonable question growing out of some very common false assumptions.

So, here’s my reasonable answer growing out of who I am and what I have experienced:

People who want to solve creative problems — their craft or life problems — with nuts-and-bolts formulas are, in my opinion, damn boring people and should be avoided at all cost…unless you also crave boredom in your life.

These nuts and bolts seekers usually lack the essential ingredient that will open the door to genuine, successful creative problem-solving of any kind.

They are, for the most part, people who have great difficulty in openly expressing or using passion in a creative manner.

In case you missed that class in cognitive psychology in college, Passion is an experience or perception of an activity that involves as much feeling as thinking.

A passionate individual is one who channels the energy of instinctual drives into higher, more creative, and less objectionable forms. Some philosophers believed that such “sublimation” of energy is far more valuable than the suppression of the instincts urged by many western religions.

Passion can take many forms. For many, it can occur when they visit the Grand Canyon for the first time, or make love human to human, or root for their basketball team and the the team wins the tournament.

For others, it’s to be present for the birth of a newborn.

For others, it’s finding the postage stamp that completes part of a collection or driving the Porsche they dreamed of owning.

But let’s talk about passion closer to work.

Passion is what effective radio sales people experience when they call on a radio resistant client, get their signature on an agreement, and make “quota” back at the station.

Or it’s what the GM and radio staff experience when they bust their humps to attract and build audience — and the new ratings book puts them significantly ahead of the previous rating period.

Without the presence of passion, great literature would not have been written. Ditto for opera, popular music, dance, painting, architecture, theatre, novels or the fantastic home run that won countless World Series games.

And we say ditto for Great Advertising.

If it’s not inspired by passion, it can’t be great.

All the rest is “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” And rarely gets heard passionately.

Only passionately conceived and executed advertising can evoke in the consumer intense interest, unusual excitement and powerful memorability.

I’ve had the pleasure of working directly with the air staff of Belgium’s Q-Music.

But, alas, I didn’t have anything to do with this clever idea that Erwin Deckers shared with me a while ago….

“We put a gold bar in a big ice cube, suspended in mid-air.

“The weather and a lot of marketing did the rest.

“When the gold bar hit the floor, the listener who correctly predicted the exact time won the gold bar — worth 25,000 Euros.

“It’s great marketing; our cube was in the middle of the biggest shopping area of Belgium.

“It gives you great coverage; we had front pages of national papers and the national TV news covered it.

“And it is great to create talk of the town; EVERYBODY was talking about it.”

Very solid radio promotion idea.

It has:

* Drama

* Suspense

* Audience Involvement

* Quirkiness — In other words, it’s kind of silly (which is good).

* Easy Visualization

* Low Barrier To Entry. (You don’t need any special expertise or qualifications to enter.)