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radio ad copywritingA Loyal Reader Writes:

“Our five-station cluster hired a full-time radio copywriter and was eager to see results.

“Most account executives tried her out and had good success but soon began shying away because they didn’t like taking the time to write everything down and explain it all to her so she could create a fresh idea.

“Gradually, commercial script requests came less frequently, even though the sales manager encouraged everyone to take advantage of her skills.

“Also, some AE’s often would rewrite her scripts to make them conform to the old ways the clients had been used to (e.g., phone numbers, business hours, street addresses, and the client’s name ten times).

“So, will a copywriter have any better effect with a CPCC” — Certified Professional Commercial Copywriter — “piece of paper waving from her cubicle?”

No, the CPCC credential won’t help in that situation. (The Loyal Reader is asking me because I created the certification program for the Radio Advertising Bureau.)

This person works for a very large radio group that spent over a million dollars producing several regional events with the stated purpose of helping its stations produce better commercials for their clients.

If those events were designed to produce publicity within the industry, they succeeded.

Perhaps they were designed to impress the financial community.

But it takes more than a couple of days of rah-rah motivation to change someone’s belief system.

The account execs this Loyal Reader refers to labor under the prevalent North American radio belief system:

“The customer is always right”

aka

“Take the money and run.”

If salespeople are involved in writing (or rewriting) copy, they need to be taught how to create effective radio advertising.

Not buzzwords. Not pseudo-scientific jargon. Not a chauvinistic mindset that blindly declares, “Radio is great. All hail Radio.”

Anyone — account executive, owner, production director, creative director, copywriter, receptionist — who ever has anything to do with the shaping of a radio commercial should (at a bare minimum) be taught two things:

1.  The fundamentals of advertising.

2.  The fundamentals of radio advertising.

Very often the client’s idea of “good advertising” is deeply uninformed and incorrect.

If you’re in the business of selling commercials, then “The customer is always right” is a fine and valid credo.

But if you’re in the business of helping businesses use radio advertising to meet their financial goals — and business owners realize their dreams — “The customer is always right” is wrong.

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AUDIOBOOK NARRATORS

Book for Audiobook Narrators

Get Barbara’s book here.Audiobook Narrator: The Art of Narrating Audio Books

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I received an e-mail from a quite famous radio consultant.

You won’t be able to guess who it is. For one thing, he has not ever spoken at my PD Grad School — so that eliminates your first several guesses.

Despite his enviable track record of unbroken successes, he sounded despondent.

“I had occasion to think of you numerous times this week.

“I’m working with a station where whenever the DJ has something to say, they fire up a music bed and talk over it.

“I know you have written about this, and I think that we have the same opinion: ‘No, just say what you’re going to say, like real people talk to each other.’

“The program director disagreed with me, said everybody in his market does it. And that it keeps the momentum going. He thinks it is a matter of what the music is, that the only problem is if the station doesn’t choose its music beds well.

“Is my thinking flawed? This just seems SO obvious to me. It really makes my skin crawl. Am I nuts?”

You are correct: I’ve preached about this before.

You are correct; It’s really, really dumb.

(I just insulted 75% of the PDs reading this.)

And doing something because “everyone else in the market” (or “everyone else in radio”) does it is stupid, stupid, stupid.

That’s a brilliant approach: “Let’s do what all of our competitors are doing! That way we can’t lose!”

Maybe they should make that their positioning statement:

“Radio X. We sound just like everybody else!”

Two Very Different Examples

It’s hard to imagine two radio personalities with less in common personally than Howard Stern and the late Paul Harvey.

Many American readers of this radio blog loved one and never would listen to the other.

(If you’re outside North America: Paul Harvey was a very conservative news “commentator.” He wasn’t a journalist. He was a story teller. Even people who hated his politics conceded he was an excellent radio performer.)

Howard Stern, of course, is known to radio people around the world. (I’ve coached radio people in 37 countries, and I’ve yet to be inside a station where at least several of the programming staff haven’t seen the movie, PRIVATE PARTS.)

No music beds played under Harvey’s voice; none plays under Stern’s voice.

Why not?

Because neither of them needed one.

That program director who thinks it’s all a matter of choosing the right music to put under a DJ’s voice doesn’t understand:

If you think you need to put music under the jock’s voice to keep the audience interested, the problem isn’t “which music bed should we play?”

The problem is your jock is saying something that you don’t believe is interesting enough to command the attention of your audience.

Two Scenarios

1. You’re the expectant father, nervously pacing the hospital waiting room.

Finally the doctor comes out and says, “Congratulations. It’s a boy. Both he and his mother are doing great.”

2. The police officer stands in your doorway, awkwardly shifting his weight. “Your son has been in an automobile accident. I’m very sorry, but…Your son is dead.”

Would the impact of either of those messages have been heightened if music had been playing underneath the voice of the doctor or the police officer?

“Oh, you’re just being ridiculous, Dan. You’re talking about life and death situations.”

Exactly. I’m talking about messages that have great relevance to the lives of the people hearing them.

Usually we are not delivering life-or-death messages over the radio. (Although some of the PSAs you’ve rushed through might well have saved someone’s life, if only they had heard you.)

But the more relevant your words are to the lives of your listeners, the less you need to dress them up with music or “production values.”

“Relevant” does not need to be “life or death.”

It does, however, need to be “life.”

If what you say affects or reflects your listeners’ lives, they will listen.

Assuming, of course, that you are saying it in an interesting, compelling way.

If you are saying it in a manner that does not engage their attention, adding a music bed won’t help.

Conditioned Response

That’s what Pavlov called it. It’s also known as Classical Conditioning.

If you always put music underneath the DJ chatter, you condition your audience to perceive it as just that: chatter.

It’s nothing important, just part of the package they get when turn on your radio station.

It doesn’t take long for them to realize the equation:

DJ Voice + Extraneous Music Bed = Nothing Important.

Oh, you disagree? Really?

When something terrible happens — assassination, school shooting, mine explosion — Do you put music underneath the announcer’s voice?

“Yeah, but those are tragedies. Unfair comparison.”

Okay. Paul McCartney is in your studio, being interviewed by you live on-air. Are you really dumb enough to make the interview “more interesting” by putting an intensity bed underneath it?

The conditioned response you elicit from your listeners is:

Radio DJ Voice + Extraneous Music Bed = Nothing Special.

Just the same old stuff.

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VOICE OVER DIALECTS IN GIBBERISH

voice over dialectsMany voice actors make the mistake of thinking that “pronouncing letter combinations correctly” = performing convincing dialects. 

But in addition to pronunciation, each language has its own musical phrasing.

In this video, a 19-year old Finnish woman demonstrates how your language sounds to foreigners…even though she’s speaking gibberish.

Probably you’ll be skeptical until you hear the melody of your own language, despite the nonsense words.

For you English speakers: “UK English” appears at :50; “American English” is at 1:11. 

This won’t teach you how to speak gibberish, but it does teach voice actors how to do nine different, real dialects.

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