Every day, all over the world, thousands of radio station and ad agency ''account executives'' take their clients' local newspaper ads and hand them to thousands of copywriters.
And all of those clients later go around saying, ''I tried radio…and it didn’t work.''
Here is the key difference between a newspaper ad and a radio commercial:
For the target audience a radio commercial is a linear experience. The listener cannot jump around, looking for something of interest. The listener cannot decide to skip the boring beginning and go straight to the last 10 seconds of the message. The listener must listen — if he or she listens at all — in the precise order that the message is presented.
In a newspaper ad your eyes can jump around; a newspaper ad is not necessarily a linear experience. Your radio commercial must pull the targeted consumer along, and it must be structured in a way that immediately commands and then keeps the attention of that targeted consumer.
Take, for example, a typical department store’s ''storewide sale.'' When the local department store advertises a storewide sale, it’s actually promoting several different sales: one for women’s wear, one for men’s clothing, one for housewares, one for linens, one for electronics, etc.
Newspaper ''sale'' ads are meant to be scanned. If you’re in the market for a new television set, your eyes can scan a busy, full-page newspaper ad in 1.5 seconds, looking for a visual representation of a TV — either a photograph or a line drawing. And if you don’t spot a TV set in those 1.5 seconds, you’ll turn the page without ever knowing what the advertiser was selling.
But your ears cannot scan a busy, copy-laden 60-second commercial in search of something of interest to you. The commercial has to have targeted you as its audience. No one will sit through 20 or 30 or 40 seconds of irrelevance in the desperate hope that eventually the commercial will say something that is relevant to their lives.
2. Not Using Emotion to Sell
Before you begin writing or even conceptualizing your advertising, ask yourself, ''What is the one emotion that is going to drive this campaign?''
Whether it’s a single commercial or an entire campaign, what is the one emotion that you are going to use to motivate the targeted listener to act on your sales message? Because all of us are motivated by emotions. Our decision to buy is based on emotions…even though we may try to justify our purchase choice with ''logic.''
When I say ''the one emotion,'' I am not saying that for any campaign there could only be one appropriate emotion. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that for any campaign you could find at least two different emotional approaches that would work. But you need to decide before you begin what your emotional approach will be.
Selling with emotion is such an important concept — especially in a radio commercial — that in my seminars I feature quite a few radically different examples of real commercials. Would you think to advertise a business journal with…fear? Or an insecticide with…hatred?
All human beings are motivated by emotional needs. If you ignore that basic tenet of psychology, you aren’t getting enough of a return on your advertising investment.
3. Too Much Copy
Far too many businesses believe the way to get the most for their radio advertising dollar is to cram as much information and as many words as possible into their commercial.
Wrong!
The average rate of conversational English is three words per second — or 180 words per minute. But I’ve seen 60-second spots with 300 words crammed into that tiny, fragile minute.
Before turning your copy over to a producer, read it aloud at the pace you expect the copy to be delivered…and time it. If it takes you 75 seconds to read it aloud, what makes you think the producer can do a good job with the same copy in just 60 seconds?
Too many copywriters treat the time limits of a commercial the way some people treat a dinner buffet. Here’s how a dinner buffet is supposed to be utilized: you take a little bit of this, a little bit of that, you gather a nice variety of foods in small amounts and enjoy a reasonable meal. But some of us view a buffet like this: ''If I can get the food onto the plate…and I can get the plate to the table…it’s mine!''
Applying that attitude to your copywriting only results in a great big stomachache for your targeted listener!
And by the way, I said that three words per second is the average rate of spoken English. But effective advertising ultimately tells a story. If you think of the very best storyteller you ever heard, I’ll bet that person spoke more slowly than average. Three words per second should not be your goal; as a rule of thumb, it should be your maximum. And very often the best commercials average much less than that maximum.
Your goal is not to fit in as many words as you can; it’s to use as few words as possible. Use only as many words as you need to communicate your message powerfully, effectively, and memorably.
About the Author
Dan O'Day (www.danoday.com) is internationally known as radio's commercial-copywriting guru.
In fact, when the Radio Advertising Bureau decided to offer the industry's first certification course for copywriters — the Certified Professional Commercial Copywriter — Dan is the person they asked to create it. The CPCC remains the industry’s gold standard of training.
Dan has helped radio stations, advertisers, and ad agencies in 34 different countries create advertising that produces money-making results for the client...and re-orders for the station or agency.
His newsletter, The Dan O'Day Radio Advertising Letter, is subscribed to by more than 11,000 broadcast and advertising professionals worldwide.
