My old friend Dave Foxx of Z100 New York shares radio imaging tips on how to combine texture and speed to maximize your promo’s impact on the audience.
It’s an easy production principle that all producers should learn and keep in their arsenals.
Recently I tweeted, “Putting a client’s phone # in their radio commercial if customers don’t want to call is stupid. Even if it’s a vanity # or catchy jingle.”
That generated this response from Nick Summers, Production Director of Desert Radio Group/Palm Springs, California.
Seems like I’ve been fighting the phone numbers battle forever. Below is an e-mail I recently sent to our AE’s. It seems to have made an impression, as a couple of them have shared it with clients. Spots are getting approved without phone numbers.
The Damage Done by a phone number in a 30 Second spot
When a local retail advertiser insists on including a phone number in a 30 second spot, he damages his advertising message. A phone number does not make the success of a spot more likely. In fact, it is not a harmless, innocuous addition to the copy. In nearly all cases, insistence on a phone number damages the 30.
Every second in a 30 is like oceanfront property. Every second has to be used to its fullest benefit. Including a phone number takes up at least 3 seconds. Reading it twice takes up 6 seconds. At that point, the client has wasted 20 percent of the time available with clutter.
Few consumers will write a phone number from the radio. What’s most important in the spot is the retailer’s name, and a simple, broad, clear compelling message. Every second of the radio oceanfront property has to contribute to those two objectives. Anything else is clutter and dilutes the message. It’s that simple. When the ad message is sufficiently compelling and they remember the retailer’s name, they’ll find him!
The phone number is white noise that goes in one ear and out the other. It’s right up there with radio copy sludge like “friendly, knowledgeable staff,” “for all your (blank blank) needs” “conveniently located at,” “try us again for the first time,” “you’ve tried the rest, now try the best,” and “for your shopping convenience.” All do damage to a simple, clear ad message
I’ll concede that a mnemonic phone number like 1-800-NEW CARS may be ok. When it’s a phone-only call to action, a number is necessary. When a dry cleaner, hardware store, or yogurt stand, however, insist on a generic number like 325-5298, it’s beyond useless. It takes up valuable time and damages the effectiveness of the commercial.
Any spec or first take I do of a commercial will not include the phone number, unless it’s appropriate as described above. I’m asking that when a client says to you “what about my phone number,” please do your client the service of explaining the benefits of not including it!
A phone number is the worst possible use of his radio oceanfront property. It’s as useless as including the retailer’s birthday.
Of course, don’t get into an argument. If they implacably insist, we’ll include the number. At least, though, we will have tried to deliver the best possible radio copy, undamaged by copywriting clutter.
Larry Fuss sent me a note:
It just keeps getting more ridiculous… “all your yogurt needs” from a Wal-Mart ad.
Some marketing genius, probably at an ad agency, probably got paid big bucks to come up with such a compelling message!
Here’s what raised his ire.
Notice to copywriters of radio advertising, TV commercials, print ads:
Aside from food, water and oxygen, consumers don’t have “needs.”
They have wants. Desires. Things they’d really like to obtain. Things that might improve their lives.
But no needs your advertiser can fulfill.
If you are running any spots that refer to “all your _______ needs” and it was created in-house:
1. Change the copy.
2. Re-record the commercial.
3. If the person who did the copywriting wasn’t forced to refer to “your _______ needs,” have a conversation with that person.
4. If that conversation proves fruitless, have a conversation with the person who hired that copywriter.
Earlier I presented one example of a “Hail Mary” method of getting a non-responsive prospect to return the voice mail message of a radio salesperson.
One reader, David, posted this reply:
Respect what you are saying. As a global Guru you will appreciate that cultural differences that often dictate how these things are executed locally. For me, here in the UK, this is a great example of American salesmanship! Love it. If it worked for Robert, fantastic. Over here it would sink.
This is an example of how a sales person would execute what I call the ’13th close’. When all else fails, tears start to well up in your eyes, your breathing becomes laboured, your hand starts to shake. The prospect asks what’s the matter thinking your having an ‘episode’. You tell him or her that you’re going to get fired if you don’t bring in a deal today. With your head in your hands you ask ‘what are my 5 kids going to think when they come back in from school?’.
We never use the 13th close.
First, David, thanks for the jargon, which I love collecting.
While Robert’s particular “Hail Mary” message (that’s my own term) wouldn’t fit your style, it’s the same in the UK as elsewhere:
Almost all salespeople leave essentially one voice mail message multiple times and, when they reach a certain point, simply give up.
They will increase their success rate if before they give up on that prospect, they leave one well designed, radically different message that is far from the style that has failed them.
Upon first reading, your message appears to be your final line: “We never use the 13th close.”
But going back to your first paragraph, you say, “Cultural differences often dictate how these things are executed locally.”
That definitely is true. With virtually everything I teach, the principles are universal and will work anywhere.
But often the execution will differ depending upon the geographic location or cultural setting.
This applies to radio programming as well.
The one thing that every radio market in the world has in common is the belief that “our market is different.”
Every market in the world tells you, “But we’re different.”
“That might work in the the U.S., but not in Canada.”
“That might work in North America, but not in Europe.”
“That might work in Western Europe, but not in Eastern Europe.”
This was most dramatically demonstrated when I conducted a radio talent seminar at a large broadcast conference in Oberhausen, Germany.
I played an example of a highly entertaining on-air contest as done by a disc jockey in Dallas, Texas.
The attendees — even those who “heard” the contest via simultaneous translation from my English to their German — howled with laughter.
Then I played a version of the same competition, this time presented by two morning hosts in Sweden.
Again, the room filled with wholehearted laughter.
Then a radio programmer stood up, cleared his throat and said, “That probably would work in Cologne. But here in Oberhausen, I don’t think listeners would ‘get it.'”
Oberhausen is 75 kilometers (47 miles) from Cologne.
Principles of human behavior and communication are universal, because they are rooted in genetic programming.
It’s like food: All human beings eat; there is no “No Food” culture. Among cultures, the flavors vary, the spices vary, the styles of preparation vary.
But the principle of “eat food to survive” is constant.
So are basic human impulses and behaviors. We may present those behaviors differently. But that’s just a matter of utilizing the appropriate local flavors to your presentation.
A few days ago I critiqued the voice mail script of a radio salesperson.
In my “Guerrilla Tactics for Getting Your Voice Mail Messages Returned” seminar, I teach what I call “Hail Mary” tactics.
Most account executives make X number of attempts to get a callback from a prospect, and then they give up.
I tell them, “When you’ve tried and tried and have concluded that your standard approach just won’t succeed with that prospect, before giving up entirely try at least one dramatically different, offbeat, bold approach.
“After all, they’re already not calling you back. What do you have to lose?”
Robert Topping of KOLA-FM,whose script I critiqued earlier, had been using his own “Hail Mary” message even before he took my seminar.
I’m sharing it here with his permission.
Robert’s son’s first name is Boston.
