{"id":18489,"date":"2015-08-13T00:06:13","date_gmt":"2015-08-13T07:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danoday.com\/blog\/?p=18489"},"modified":"2015-08-13T00:06:13","modified_gmt":"2015-08-13T07:06:13","slug":"write-funny-radio-spots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danoday.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/write-funny-radio-spots\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Write Funny Radio Commercials – Copywriting Lesson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Writing<\/a>The first two businesses to offer to pay me to create commercial campaigns were a bank and a shopping center. I’ve long forgotten which was first.<\/span><\/p>\n

But each approached me, money in hand, for the worst possible reason: <\/span><\/p>\n

Because I hosted a funny radio show, they wanted me to be the guy to create funny radio commercials for them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, I’m very good at writing funny radio ads.<\/span><\/p>\n

No, that’s not a good reason to hire me.<\/span><\/p>\n

The only people who should want to hire me as a freelance commercial copywriter<\/a> are people who want effective<\/em> campaigns, not funny ones. <\/span><\/p>\n

“We want you to write some funny spots for us,”<\/em> a potential client will say.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Oh, you want funny<\/strong> spots? Glad you told me that now. Otherwise I would have assumed you wanted an effective commercial campaign that would produce money-making results. But you just want ‘funny?’ Okay.”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

“No, wait! Of course we want the campaign to work<\/strong>!”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

“Oh. Hmmm. Which is more important to you: that your commercials make money for you, or that they’re funny?”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

“That they make money for us.”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

“Okay,”<\/em> I’ll say. “That’s what I’ll focus on: creating an effective campaign that delivers a positive Return on Investment. At this stage, I have no idea if it’ll be funny. It might be deadly serious. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“The first thing I’m going to do is ask you about a billion questions, until I really understand not just what it is you sell but, more importantly, why people buy it. I need to understand how what you sell improves your customers’ lives.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

“When I reach the point where I understand it well enough to start writing, the odds are that by then I’ll have a pretty good idea of the best approach to take\u2026to produce a profitable ROI for you.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

“That might turn out to be a series of comedic spots. It might be slice-of-life dialogue. It might even be a ‘straight announcer read.’ But I can’t work with you if you need me to promise to create a ‘funny’ campaign before I know what the message is going to be. Is that okay with you?”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

That bank and that shopping center were lucky: I wrote funny spots that worked for them.<\/span><\/p>\n

But they should have come to me because they believed I knew how to sell in a radio commercial, not because I knew how to be funny.<\/span><\/p>\n

As it happens, a fair percentage of the campaigns I’ve created over the years have been humorous.<\/span><\/p>\n

My favorite might’ve been the one in which the announcer called the advertiser a liar. (Some people have commented that sometimes my style of humor is “subversive.”)<\/span><\/p>\n

If after you’ve done your research you decide the best approach is a spot that incorporates humor or comedy, here are my <\/span><\/p>\n

20 Questions to Ask When Writing Funny Radio Commercials.<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n