DAN O’DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO

A loyal reader writes from the UK:

I have a difference of opinion with a colleague regarding the positioning statement, “Commercial Free” — as in “40 minutes commercial free.”

Can you please explain the reason so many U.S. stations use this statement? Is it not raising too many questions about the amount of commercials there usually are? Would it not be better using “40 minutes nonstop music” instead?

Here are the arguments on both sides.

“Commercial Free”: You’re telling listeners, “We know you’d rather not have your music interrupted by commercials. For the next 40 minutes, you’ll hear only music, no commercials.”

“Nonstop Music”: 1) That’s really what we’re selling, isn’t it? Nonstop music?  2) We don’t want to imply that commercials have any sort of negative connotation.  3) We don’t want to offend our advertisers (by implying that commercials have some sort of negative connotation).

My opinion:

I can argue both sides, but “Commercial Free” is stronger.

To music station listeners, commercials are interruptions. To listeners, “Commercial Free” = “It’s safe to keep this station on for the next 40 minutes without hearing any commercials.”

Some people, of course, will argue that you shouldn’t promote what people won’t be hearing (commercials) but what they will be hearing (nonstop music). But promising not to inflict a negative in a situation where people otherwise would expect it can be effective.

“Painless dentistry” (dentistry without pain) for example, will attract more patients than “neutral experience dentistry.”

You’ve heard TiVo users say they like “being able to skip past the commercials,” right? But I doubt you’ve heard even one of them say, “I like being able to enjoy the programs nonstop.”

But what about your advertisers?

They know that, in general, people don’t enjoy having their favorite music interrupted by commercials. (The exception, of course, being each advertiser’s own commercial, which is a timeless work of art.)

Meanwhile, for the audience it goes beyond which pair of words you choose to describe your programming. The station in my market that boasts “another half hour of nonstop music” and runs 10-second promos before and after every song reminding people that they’re hearing 30 minutes of nonstop music:

1.  Doesn’t get it.

2.  Is lying.

Welcome to another look at award winning radio commercials — spotlighting the good and the bad from the  2007 Radio Mercury Awards. This one was a finalist.

Question: What’s wrong with this radio commercial?

Answer: Everything.

It features one of the most amateurish, incompetent uses of sound effects I’ve ever heard. Those voices are not airline passengers. They’re generic crowd conversation voices.

Why is that important?

Your sounds are supposed to help paint the desired picture in the targeted listener’s mind. That SFX selection doesn’t paint the picture of passengers on an airplane. And the sounds of people screaming? Maybe on a roller coaster, not in a pressured aircraft.

In addition to being the wrong sound effects, they’re utilized — sorry to repeat the adverb, but it’s the most accurate word choice — incompetently.

According to this lame story, the pilot terrifies the passengers by saying he’s going to take a nap. They scream in horror.

But as soon as he cracks the intercom microphone again (but before he speaks), the crowd stops screaming and reverts to its generic, loud multiple conversations. They don’t continue screaming, and they don’t stop talking  in order to hear the pilot reassure them that, despite their tremendous fears, he was only kidding.

Even with the inane sound effects, you might have pictured the pilot, perhaps the frightened passengers.

But did you picture yourself buying a lottery ticket? Or your life that has changed for the better because you won the lottery?

Highly unlikely.

The announcer says, “There’s a place for fun & games” and that the Georgia Lottery is “all fun & games.”

Clue #1: People don’t buy lottery tickets because it’s fun.

Clue #2: Ask 1,000 Georgians to list all the games they can think of. Then notice that not one of them includes “lottery” in his or her list.

Clue #3: People buy lottery tickets in the hopes of changing their lives. That concept, however, is nowhere to be found in that stupid airline story.

This was a story about an airline pilot messing with people’s minds — apparently that jerk’s idea of fun & games.

But the announcer tells us the Georgia Lottery is the “place for fun & games.”

So let’s rework the tag line for them, shall we?

“The Georgia Lottery. We’ll mess with your mind.”

Do you really believe that approach sold even a single extra lottery ticket?

Illustration © 2009 by Bobby Ocean

Paolo Cavallone, Massimo Lopez, Christiano Militello; Sergio Sironi (rear studio)

“Why does O’Day upload a video that’s in Italian…when few of his blog readers understand the language?”

Even if you don’t know what they’re saying, if you’re a radio person the odds are you “get” what’s going on.

R101 (Milano)’s Paolo Cavallone, Massimo Lopez and Christiano Militello are in the broadcast booth, while master of characters Sergio Sironi is in the studio behind them — literally phoning in his contribution to the bit.