According to Inc. magazine, when Gordon Segal founded Crate and Barrel he used to tell his employees:
“You’re selling a candlelit dinner by poolside, not a piece of wax on a stick.”
End of today’s lesson.
A Reader Asks:
“My radio station is using a local TV meteorologist for our on-air forecasts. What’s the best way to introduce his forecast? Should he introduce himself? Should the on-air jock intro him? Should the intro always be the same? How long should the forecast be? How in-depth should the forecast be?
“Should he just state the facts or should he include patter like, ‘If you’re going to the Blue Sox game tonight bring a jacket/umbrella/ change your plans they will be rained out, etc.?’
“I’ve never used a meteorologist before. The only thing we’ve locked in on is ‘Your FM Weather Authority,’ because we are the only FM station using a local meteorologist for the weather forecasts.”
My Reply
The three major reasons to use a local TV meteorologist are:
1. To leverage his “celebrity” factor. The TV station uses its nightly air time (plus, possibly, on-air and outside advertising) to create an image for him in your market. You are exploiting his fame.
2. To lend credibility to your weather reports by having a well-known meteorologist deliver them…as opposed to a 19-year old jock reading them from the wire service.
3. To call attention to your forecasts via #1 and #2 above; you’re using this guy to make your station’s forecasts stand apart from the competition’s.
For all of the above reasons, I would not have him do his own introduction. He’s not just another disc jockey. He’s a big, famous meteorologist who really understands this stuff.
Either produce a snazzy, high-impact intro for him or write a quick, simple introduction to be used by your on-air staff.
Generally speaking, the intro always should be the same. You’re establishing your “weather authority” brand, and you want to hammer that message home again and again and again. Here are two exceptions, though:
A. It wouldn’t hurt to revisit the intro every three months, just to see if it’s getting stale or if you can discover a fresher way of delivering at least the same impact.
B. If he is introduced via live read by a big personality, you’ll want that personality to ad-lib the meteorologist’s introductions to create a “We’re two big stars, working together on this show” feeling.
Each Tuesday of Harlan Hogan’s month-long STARTING YOUR VOICEOVER BUSINESS: Everything You Need To Know To Turn Your Dream Or Your Sideline Into A Business teleseminar series includes an open-ended Q&A session.
Here’s what our students had to say about the one (the first) we completed tonight.
We just completed the first of Harlan Hogan’s month-long STARTING YOUR VOICEOVER BUSINESS: Everything You Need To Know To Turn Your Dream Or Your Sideline Into A Business teleseminar series.
We asked our students to send us their candid reviews. Here they are.
Before you do anything else — before you read any further here — please listen to this commercial just once:
Done?
Now count backward from 10 to 1. Here, I’ll help. Just read along out loud:
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Now then. Remember that Chevron commercial you just listened to? What specific message(s) do you remember? What — specifically — was it about? What consumer problem did it promise to solve?
Don’t ask me. I’ve heard it several times and I still can’t recall anything more than “a card that somehow saves you money, with lots of fine print at the end.”
1. Listen to that spot as many times as you like, until you’ve figured out what they’re offering, how it benefits the targeted consumer, and what the listener should do to act on the sales message. (That is, what is the Call To Action?)
2. Write and produce your own 60-second spot.
3. Make sure yours is better than this thing you just heard.
4. Upload your spot using this link.
5. It must be an mp3 file.
6. You must fully identify yourself.
7. The spot must run between 59.5 and 60.5 seconds.
8. Although you may have someone else produce and/or voice the commercial, the revised spot must be written by you.
9. Do not upload a script. You must upload an mp3 recording of the produced spot.
10. By “mp3 recording,” I mean “mp3 recording.” I do not mean .wav file, mp4, or anything other goshdarn format.
Rather than award some nifty prize to one winner and have everyone else be disappointed, this time around we’ll disappoint everyone. No prize. But you will receive world-wide recognition, invaluable bragging rights, and the satisfaction of knowing that you are better than everyone else. (And isn’t that what life is all about, anyway?)
There might be some. Depends on my mood.
Anyone who emails a commercial to me rather than uploading it via this link will be disqualified, publicly disgraced and— if I can arrange it — mercilessly flogged in the town square. I mean it. Use the upload link. Seriously.
Good grief, you ask a lot of questions. Sometime next week, okay? Maybe Monday. In the meantime, I’ll share some of the more interesting entries on this blog. (If I don’t play yours, it’s because it was too good and I didn’t want to dishearten everyone else.)
So, what are you waiting for? Figure out what that commercial actually is about, and then find a way to say it better. (Let’s face it: With that piece of…uh, advertising…the second part shouldn’t be too difficult.)
