DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

Yahoo! must have changed advertising agencies since they aired radio commercials that were so good I praised them and held them up in my radio advertising seminars as examples of how to use radio effectively.

Here’s a sample from their latest campaign….

Radio advertising paints pictures.

The pictures you paint are what the listener will remember. Knowing this, you want to paint pictures of the results promised by the product or service.

What pictures do you retain from that commercial? Some kid outside a rock club? (Even that, by the way, is badly done. If he’s outside the arena, why does he sound as though he’s speaking from a recording booth?)

So they use this young man’s voice to paint pictures of…whatever….But when — 18 seconds into the spot — they get around to what Yahoo is trying to sell, they bring in an announcer who attempts to sell it solely with words, without painting any memorable, relevant pictures.

Last year I was hired was to critique radio commercials that were produced by beginners — by people who’d had no training or experience in radio commercial copywriting but who found themselves having to produce spots every day.

Whenever a spot included someone talking about doing something online, invariably there’d be the sound effect of someone typing on a keyboard. Repeatedly I found myself explaining that the listener doesn’t need to hear a typing sound effect in order to picture someone doing something online and that, in fact, the typing usually distracts the listener from the intended message.

But those were beginners I was talking to, so I forgave them.

I don’t forgive whoever produced the mess you just heard.

Illustration © 2010 by Bobby Ocean

"I love your jelly!"

The world’s greatest disc jockey, Gary Burbank, via his alter ego, Gilbert Gnarley, calls to compliment a company on its delightfully delicious jelly.

Mmm, breakfast.

April, 1996 (continued):

The airport at Ostersund, Sweden, was undergoing construction, and the baggage claim area was temporarily unavailable. Instead, everyone’s bags were wheeled out on carts to the sidewalk, where they sat pretty much unattended until, presumably, the last suitcase disappeared.

Fortunately for that evening’s passengers, it wasn’t raining at the time. Only snowing.

Mats Elg of Radio Jämtland was kind enough to meet me at the airport and drive me to my hotel.

Of course, when he volunteered for such duty he didn’t realize he’d be forced to sit around for an hour waiting for my delayed flight. It was close to midnight before he dropped me off at the Radisson SAS Hotel.

With Mats scheduled to return at 9:00 the following morning to take me to the radio station, there was no way I’d be able to get the eight hours’ sleep my beleaguered body needs.

Upon reaching my hotel room, I would need to unpack, go over my notes for the next day’s seminar, play Hotel Telephone Internet Roulette (i.e., attempt to log onto CompuServe to get my e-mail; remember “dial-up”?), brush my teeth, and then lie on the bed and try not to keep myself awake all night by desperately thinking, “I’ve got to get to sleep!”

Due to the abbreviated sleep after such a very long, work- and travel-filled day, I felt lousy when I awakened. My primary symptom was a massive headache.

Different people have different remedies for headaches. Some people apply relaxation techniques. Some apply pressure at some magical point on the palm of one’s hand. Others chant, hum, or pray.

My own technique is simple: Four Extra-Strength Excedrin, washed down with Diet Coke.

But even Excedrin plus Diet Coke (in Europe, it’s called “Coke Light”) require one more ingredient:  I have to have food in my stomach before I take the aspirin. Protein-rich, heavy food — i.e., some kind of meat.

So before leaving to conduct that day’s air talent seminar, I went downstairs to the hotel restaurant and had a hearty breakfast dominated by several large portions of…reindeer meat.

Of course, reindeer meat is pretty ordinary for Scandinavians. I suspect, however, that there is not a native-born American citizen who can eat reindeer meat without first thinking, with a shudder, of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

What is it like? Very distinctive, like a cross between beef and ham. (Someone told me it’s similar to venison, which I’ve never had.)

I am happy to report, however, that after a half-pound of reindeer meat followed by Coke Light and Excedrin, I began to feel human once more.

After the day’s seminar, Mats invited me to his house for dinner. This was the first time I’ve ever been in a Swedish home, and it was a very welcome change of pace from my typical airport-hotel-seminar-airport regimen.

Next: I learn why people joke about Belgian taxi drivers.