Time for another look at award winning radio commercials — spotlighting the good and the bad from the 2007 Radio Mercury Awards.
This one was a finalist in the 30-second category.
The problem they appear to be showing is that of radio not being “clean”.
There’s no way someone will hear this commercial even multiple times and associate it with the real problem, which is keeping your carpets in your home or your office clean.
Incredibly bad.
It was 71 years ago yesterday that The Mercury Theatre “panicked the nation.”
Orson Wells and others share their recollections.
September, 1995: New Orleans was the site of this year’s NAB Radio Show, where I presented The Total Quality Radio Station.
Edison Media Research’s Larry Rosin — who moderated a panel at the convention — insisted that he wanted to buy me a nice dinner there .
So on my first evening in New Orleans I followed him a couple of blocks from my hotel to a diner called “Mother’s,” where I ordered the most expensive thing on the menu — a $7 sandwich. Which I paid for. (At least the sandwich was good; I’d go back there.)
I left the convention a day early, because the following day I had to put on a tuxedo for the second time that year (and, actually, that decade) in order to attend the Emmy Awards here in L.A.
I’m pretty sure I was the only guest who drove up in a 1981 Toyota Tercel. (I prefer to think of it as a “classic automobile.”)
Walking past the screaming fans and frothing paparazzi, I swear I could hear people murmuring, “Who the heck is that??”
I had decided not to wear the suspenders that came with the rented tux; why bother to indulge in such a silly affectation? Only upon arriving at the Emmys did I realize that they do hold your pants up. So I had to walk with one hand at belt-level, constantly tugging to keep my trousers up. (I’m a very classy guy. And there’s more to come.)
Next time you watch an awards show (assuming that you have nothing better to do with your life), notice how you never see any empty seats when the camera pans the audience. But…What about the winners who leave their seats to claim their awards? What about the people who get up to use the restroom during the multi-hour event?
Their seats temporarily are filled by “seat fillers” — formally dressed young men & women who stand on the sidelines, out of camera range, and rush forward to take the place of anyone who vacates (even temporarily) a seat. No, they don’t get paid for this…and they even have to provide their own fancy clothes.
Cary Grant
Dan O’Day
Separated at birth?
I assume that even my seat was filled when, midway through the show, I went to the rest room.
There was a line of tuxedo’d men waiting to get in. Immediately in front of me was an older gentleman talking on a cellular phone. Here is what he said:
“Look, I’m about to go into the bathroom now. I’ll call you back. I’ll call you back. Look, I’ll call you back. I’ve got to go now; I’ll call you back. I’ll call you back, okay? I’ll call you back….”
Somewhere between my auditorium seat and the bathroom, I lost a cuff link. For the rest of the evening I kept shirt cuff fastened with a safety pin. (I know what you’re thinking: I remind you so much of Cary Grant.)
LEAP OF FAITH RADIO PRODUCTION with Bobby Ocean
Today’s radio, nearly unrecognizable to, say, a Pams Pureblood or Hippy Reveler from the 60s or a disciplined Boss Jock from the 70s, even now operates on what I call “universals,” or ideas of a timeless quality.
One of the “universals,” the simple telling of a Story, as one example, is just as appealing today as it was when Broadcasting originated from Broadway in New York City over 70 years ago, with twenty-something Orson Welles as its reining King.
Our current state of radio, still in flux and motion, continues to use Stories every day, whether they are in the form of a commercial, a polarizing opinion on a talk show or a night time love song dedication.
And there are many more methods than before that can be employed to successfully hold the listener’s attention through your Story. Styles have been developed, patterns have been recognized and plotted. Now small armies of technique-hybrids inferred from extrapolations of these archetypes are suddenly available and at the ready, just in time for the new inclusive digital age.
As they have always been, they are all here waiting to be individually discovered by you and me.
In addition to Stories, there are plenty of other “universals” in great abundance for broadcast craftspeople to be found in all corners of the Big Tent.
Sales people have their tricks, some really cool ones. Production Alchemists have bags full, as do Voice Performers, Engineers, Disc Jockeys and General Managers.
That’s one of the things that made me fall in love with radio. It is a portal to Infinity.
