A Loyal Reader Writes:
“My morning show partner is asking me to keep personal events/situations out of our on-air conversations because she’s tired of people asking questions about her private life. I told her this kind of personal detail is what makes the listener identify with us.
“I’m not saying we should be like Howard Stern and tell EVERYTHING, but embarrassing stories, going to the dentist or doctor, all that kind of stuff (as long as it’s entertaining and we know where it’s going) should be in play, don’t you think?”
It all depends upon what you want to accomplish.
I get the impression that your goal is to maximize your ratings, while your partner’s goal is to do her job and then live her life without the two ever intersecting.
If listeners frequently ask about her personal life, that means they’re interested in her as a person.
If they’re interested in her as a person, her on-air presence is making some sort of personal impact on the audience. Apparently your listeners think of her not as an “announcer” but as a human being.
Everything else being equal, an interesting human being will garner a larger audience than an impersonal announcer. It’s a simple fact: People relate to people, not to announcers.
Your partner needs to ask herself, “Why am I part of a morning team? Why are there two of us instead of just one?”
If all you do is identify the songs and read the liner cards, one of you is superfluous.
The fact that your station has installed a 2-person team as its morning show suggests the station’s strategy is not to limit the program to time & temp. Two people should equal two sets of life experiences.
But there’s no away around it: A successful radio personality is a celebrity, and with celebrityhood comes a certain loss of privacy and a presumed intimacy between you and some of your fans.
life experiences.
There’s nothing wrong with your partner wanting to keep her private life private. But if she restricts herself to being just a voice on the radio, she’s putting an artificially low ceiling on your show’s potential ratings.
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First, the radio commercial.
Now that you’ve listened to it, make a list of every picture you recall seeing in your mind’s eye.
Seriously. Take just a moment to jot down whatever pictures you recall making during that spot.
Here’s what I recall:
Two guys talking
A car
The Bahamas
I admit I cheated: I had to make myself listen two additional times, because my mind kept finding other, more interesting things to pay attention to.
Most radio audience members, of course, aren’t similarly motivated to force themselves to listen to an advertisement.
How about you? Perhaps you remembering seeing an elevator.
Before we identify The Big Thing This Campaign’s Creators Don’t Understand, a couple of notes.
1. This is another example of a radio copywriter using a commercial to illustrate, via metaphor, something the audience already understands: a good deal vs. a bad deal.
Instead, they should’ve spent that time showing us what a terrific deal the advertiser is offering us.
2. “We’re here at the ballpark.”
Why??
Other than altering the sound effects, how would this spot have been different if they’d been “here in a supermarket parking lot” or “here at the bus station” or “here at a flea market”?
The Big Thing This Campaign’s Creators Don’t Understand About Radio Advertising
For a radio commercial to succeed, the targeted listener must mentally picture what is being sold.
In some cases, it’s enough to picture the product. Usually, they must picture the results of the product or service.
You didn’t picture “up to 500 megabytes at high speed while on T-Mobile’s advanced nationwide network for just 50 bucks a month plus taxes and fees,” because you can’t see that in your mind’s eye.
They relied solely on words (no pictures) to deliver the sales message. And not one of those ineffectual words was about the benefits of “up to 500 megabytes at high speed while on T-Mobile’s advanced nationwide network for just 50 bucks a month plus taxes and fees.”
Presumably, there are benefits to the consumer.
But did you picture any of them as that auditory mess rushed past your ears?
