{"id":7567,"date":"2010-10-27T00:05:17","date_gmt":"2010-10-27T07:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danoday.com\/blog\/?p=7567"},"modified":"2010-10-26T22:47:51","modified_gmt":"2010-10-27T05:47:51","slug":"entertaining-radio-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danoday.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/entertaining-radio-ads\/","title":{"rendered":"DO I DISLIKE RADIO COMMERCIALS THAT ENTERTAIN?"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Funny<\/a>\n

I’ve heard people say the goal of a radio commercial is to entertain people.<\/p>\n

One would-be expert actually proclaimed, “A radio commercial must<\/strong> be entertaining, or it won’t work.”<\/p>\n

Good grief.<\/p>\n

Someone asked me: “So you’re against entertainment in commercials?” <\/em><\/p>\n

Absolutely not. I’m against entertainment (and anything else) that is irrelevant to the sales process.<\/p>\n

The model that most people follow when creating commercials \u2014 including most award-winning commercials \u2014 is: “I’ll do a little song & dance to entertain them, and then I’ll try to sell them something.”<\/em><\/p>\n

And it used<\/strong> to work that way.\u00a0 120 years ago, some guy would show up in a new town, set up his table, and launch into a juggling routine or a magic act.<\/p>\n

A crowd would gather.<\/p>\n

And then the entertainer would go to the back of his tent and the snake oil salesman would come out and deliver his finely crafted and well-rehearsed sales pitch.<\/p>\n

They sold an awful lot of snake oil that way.<\/p>\n

But that’s not how it works with electronic media advertising in the 21st Century.<\/p>\n

Remember, Advertising Is Mass Salesmanship<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Question for Radio Sales Managers<\/h3>\n

Do you instruct your account executives to conduct sales calls by telling 27 jokes and then asking, “Do you want to buy some commercials?”<\/p>\n

If you entertain in a commercial, the entertainment has to be inextricably woven around the sales message. You should not be able to remove the entertainment without removing the sales message itself.
\nThat’s a very easy and extremely effective test to apply to your commercial: “Is it possible to remove the entertaining elements without also removing the sales message?”<\/em><\/p>\n

All too often, the answer is yes.<\/p>\n

I’ve lost count of the number of award-winning commercials that won those awards because of their entertainment value…even though you could have replaced the product or service that was being advertised with practically any other<\/strong> product or service without touching the entertainment.<\/p>\n

The good news is you don’t<\/strong> need to understand how the different parts of the brain work. You don’t<\/strong> need to learn pseudo-scientific jargon. All you need to understand is how radio advertising works<\/strong>. And it works like this:<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> Identify a desire that will be fulfilled or a problem that will be solved by your client’s product or service.<\/p>\n

Example:<\/em><\/p>\n

Alka-Seltzer: “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”<\/em><\/p>\n

(Have you ever had that problem?)<\/p>\n

Example:<\/p>\n

Federal Express: “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Those are common, real problems…and those two advertisers offered real solutions. Simply, clearly, and directly.<\/p>\n

2. <\/strong>Show the consumer how you can fulfill his desire or solve her problem.<\/p>\n

3. <\/strong>Deliver your message in a way that involves the listener.<\/p>\n

4. <\/strong>Make sure your message is absolutely clear…with a single clear message.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve heard people say the goal of a radio commercial is to entertain people. One would-be expert actually proclaimed, “A radio commercial must be entertaining, or it won’t work.” Good grief. Someone asked me: “So you’re against entertainment in commercials?” Absolutely not. I’m against entertainment (and anything else) that is irrelevant to the sales process. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"yoast_head":"\nDO I DISLIKE RADIO COMMERCIALS THAT ENTERTAIN? - DAN O\u2019DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/danoday.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/entertaining-radio-ads\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"DO I DISLIKE RADIO COMMERCIALS THAT ENTERTAIN? - DAN O\u2019DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’ve heard people say the goal of a radio commercial is to entertain people. 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