December 18, 2007
How To Work With Your Radio Advertising Agency
If there were a top ten list of do's and don'ts when working with a radio advertising agency, this one would be on the list.
Don't rush your radio agency's creative process.
Few advertising agencies will ever tell you this. Why? Because we want to please the customer. Sometimes, as hard as we try not to fall into the trap, we will try to please you even when it isn't in your best interest to do so.
We were recently reminded of this phenomenon. A client was in a hurry to be on the air as soon as possible (not unusual). He asked how soon we could have him some radio commercials for review. We took into consideration our current line-up of creative projects and the time we thought would be necessary to produce great work and we gave him a date. It wasn't fast enough for him, and we then received the hard charging business-guy press for "more, better, faster".
We folded. Caved. "Okay, we'll do that for you."
And we quickly realized it was a mistake. When it comes to writing radio commercials, the process cannot be rushed. It is not a matter of sitting down and writing a half a page of words. It can be that, but then the chances of success are severely diminished. Why? Because that's just not the way insights occur. And if you write radio commercials without some set of insights about your customers' underlying thoughts, emotions and perceived needs, you'll get one thing with 100% certainty: a radio ad that sounds like a lot of other radio ads. And that's usually a radio ad that won't do as well as hoped.
In this case, we had to go back and tell the client that more time would be required before we could present them with radio commercial concepts that we felt were up to par. And we re-learned a valuable lesson.
Be careful what you ask for. When you work with your radio advertising agency, don't push them on the timeline for developing radio commercials. No agency will purposely drag out the process of creating radio ads. So when they give you a date for delivery of creative work, believe them. They need time to get into the project and produce the best results. If you're in a hurry, find time elsewhere or reconfigure your launch plans.
November 06, 2007
Copywriting Wisdom From a Master
Straight from "The Art of Writing Advertising" comes this pearl from Bill Bernbach that touches on many of the point's we've made about creating successful direct response radio ads:
"Anybody in advertising who doesn't say his purpose is to sell that piece of merchandise is a phony. And you must be as simple and as swift and as penetrating as possible. And it must stem from knowledge (of the product). And you must relate that knowledge to the consumer's needs.
I don't say that by being imaginative that you just go out and be cute. I have very often given the example of being able to attract people to an ad by standing a man on his head on a page. But that is not a good ad unless you're selling a product that keeps things from falling out of that man's pockets. Then your inventiveness, and your attractiveness and your cleverness is furthering and making memorable the advantage of your product."
October 25, 2007
How Many Writers You Know Make This Mistake?
We've seen this reported in a number of different places now. Seth Godin's recent post points to research behind the assertion that short, simple sentences are the best.
What??? You mean we can't show off our intelligence by writing long sentences with complext words? No waxing poetic? No verbal virility? What about the "A" in that writing class? What about all those books that require a dictionary on hand to read?
Sure, if you want to stroke your ego. But not if you actually want to influence. Not if you want to sell. Remember this the next time you want to air a radio ad. Radio commercials with long, run-on sentences or complexly stated benefits or offers... are leaving opportunity on the table. Word your radio ads in short sentences.
There's another benefit to this. It helps the voiceover person read the ad the way you want it read. Without long sentences, there are fewer chances for creating an oddly expressed rendition of your copy.
July 26, 2007
What Social Psychology Offers Direct Response Radio Advertisers
We've written on this topic before - how the field of social psychology has a wealth of insight to offer direct response advertising.
But never has it been so prevalent in the news as it is today, with prominent front page coverate in multiple national newspapers. And, it happens to also relate to yesterday's post on this blog by further enhancing the idea presented there.
"Both obesity and thinness are socially contagious" according to James Fowler, co-author of a study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study finds that social networks have an even greater effect on chances of becoming obese than genes do. In fact, a person's chance of becoming obese jumps 57% if he or she also has a friend who became obese during a given time.
Social networks. Social Psychology. Hmmm...
Advertising is fundamentally about influencing behavior. But you have to understand the behavior first - what it is, why it occurs. Because only then can you understand the root, fundamental "need" that is being impacted by your product. And only then can you speak the right message to your customers - the one that helps them see how your product or service meets their needs.
In this case, we're talking about the issue of weight, weight gain and weight loss, the latter being one very large category of consumer marketing and consumer spending. But the idea, the concept, is directly applicable to all other categories.
If you're a marketing person, this stuff is drool-worthy. As today's Wall Street Journal puts it, the findings in this study help "explain why obesity is rising despite widespread dieting and why any weight loss achieved is so often short lived".... That "initiatives to fight obesity should take social networks into account". The study explains why organizations with a social approach to weight loss - like Weight Watchers - have achieved such success.
If you're a psychologist by trade, you're probably saying "duh". We're social creatures and it's common knowledge that we compare ourselves with others, constantly gravitating toward those who "validate" us, that is - their behaviors and words are a source of positive feelings about our own "okayness" (though being external it's an unreliable source of okayness, but that, and it's impact on marketing, is for another post). A large percentage of our "needs" - those being met by the products advertised in all mediums - boil down to the extent to which they boost this feeling of "okayness".
For direct response radio advertisers, the question becomes how to apply this knowledge to building successful campaigns. As a radio agency, this is the kind of discussion we'll push for in the strategy development stage, because it feeds the rest of the process. If you're marketing a weight loss product, perhaps it's a more direct application. If you're in a different category, it'll take some more mental work to reach an understanding of your customer's behavior and then apply it. Either way, if you want to make that connection with your potential customers, you need to show them you care enough to understand them. They'll respond to that, often by buying your product at least once. If your messages are true, then they'll buy more than once and they'll also tell other people. Then you're on to something.
June 04, 2007
Creativity in Radio Ads: A Common Trap
There are a number of traps you can fall into when creating a radio ad. One of them occurs when you try to "get creative". Radio ads are often referred to as "creative". Making a radio ad - the act of copywriting, production and editing - is often referred to as "creative development".
Sometimes people think that the goal is to be as creative as possible. But that's a misunderstanding of the process.
All elements of "creativity" must have a purpose that supports the goal(s) of the ad - the message, the distinction, the offer. Purposeless creativity may win awards but it won't sell your product. Sometimes this happens when you think a good radio is one that sounds like a radio ad. Other times it's an over-emphasis on "different" for the sake of being different. The truth is that there are some fundamentals aspects that pertain to all great radio ads. And often simple and straightforward is better. You learn these aspects over years and years of scientific testing - gathering and analyzing testing results. You learn which aspects of creativity are relevant to a specific product or service via the initial testing phase of that campaign. Together, these insights put you on course to profitability as quickly as possible.
May 30, 2007
Ten Keys to Creating Great Radio Ads
Radio ads.... you can't see them. You can't touch them.
Creating one should be easy. And it is. Write a minute's worth of ad-speak. Speak the words into a microphone. Viola!
But creating a radio ad that sells, that's a different story. It takes many years and many thousands of tests to develop an understanding of what works and what doesn't in direct response radio advertising - and that goes for creating radio ads, not just the media and strategy elements.
So we decided to write an article and share the top ten keys to creating great radio ads. You can find this new article in our Article Library.
Enjoy.
May 22, 2007
Radio Advertising and Authenticity: Getting Real
Authenticity is one of my favorite topics. It's a pure joy to work on a radio campaign that effuses authenticity.
For one thing, they work.
One reason they work is because the ads are different (see our post on this topic here). Just like every successful pop singer has a unique sound even when they sing the same song. Just watch American Idol to grasp this valuable insight.
Another reason authenticity works is because it's inspiring. Moving. We covered this concept rather well in this post a while back and then in a follow-up post here.
Even writing a blog post about authenticity is a joy.
I wonder if Bill Breen feels the same way. He recently published an article in Fast Company magazine on the topic of authenticity titled "Who Do You Love: The Appeal and Risks of Authenticity". My thanks to Mark Ramsey for pointing out this article.
"And therein lies an authentic paradox: A brand doesn't feel real when it overtly tries to make itself real. To the hypertargeted consumer, baldly billboarding a brand's message smacks of insincerity."
Paradoxes are always interesting. Mr. Breen has written a fascinating and thorough article on authenticity. There are trappings, it turns out, in being authentic. And there is, as always, the sandtrap of manipulated authenticity - real or perceived.
"What's authentic is not always real, and what's real is not always what it seems."
Shaky ground, for sure, but figuring authenticity out and doing it right... "priceless" (yes, that's inauthentic knockoff of Visa to make a point).
"It's not that Starbucks, Cold Stone Creamery, BMW, Nike, or any other brand is really, really real. What's real are the experiences and the connections that the brands allow us to make--if they give us an honest chance."
May 21, 2007
The Radio Ad You Won't Get From Google Audio
Continuing with our current series of posts on the topic of GoogleAudio, we have one more point from last week's interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt that needs to be brought to the light of day (or at least this blog).
Q: How will this work for your clients?
A: You're already advertising on the Web, so why don't you try a radio ad? And you will discover there's a whole network of people, at the click of a button, who can professionally produce the ad for you, for like $100. It's unbelievable.
Q: Is that available now?
A: No, but it will be soon.
Our comments:
Putting aside the fact that creating a radio ad is only one piece of what it takes to be successful in radio advertising...
Okay. Sure, you can find someone to write and voice an ad for you, for something like $100.
But you don't need GoogleAudio to do that. You can just search places like voices.com and you'll find hundreds of people who'll write an ad for you, produce it at high quality, and email it to you. Some may even do it for you for something like $100.
That's easy, folks.
But don't be misled.
Anybody can write an ad.
Nearly anybody can voice the ad (most VO people have in-home studios that create high quality audio and cost a few hundred bucks to put together).
But you have to ask yourself what makes an ad successful? Do these people who'll do your ad for $100 know what works and what doesn't in radio advertising? Have they conducted any testing of the myriad of possible creative and audio variables? Have they tracked results scientifically? Have they done any analysis of these results to identify key elements?
No, they haven't. They may be well read in the area of advertising theory. They may have well developed opinions about the "right" way to make a "good" radio ad. But theory and opinions alone don't cut it in radio advertising.
Only testing and analysis of results data yield dependable, reliable answers to the question of "what works and what doesn't in radio advertising". The best radio advertising agencies have conducted thousands of tests. Thousands. That's incredibly powerful knowledge that translates directly into maximum profits for our clients.
And you can't get that from GoogleAudio.
And you certainly can't get that for anything like $100.
February 23, 2007
How Poor Radio Commercials Increase Radio Advertising Costs
We get many visitors to our web site who are interested in learning more about radio advertising costs. As we've maintained, however, a perspective centered on radio advertising costs is misguided. I invite you to consider a different perspective.
There are two points I want to make today.
The first is that your radio advertising efforts are intended to result in a profit. They are not intended to minimize costs. The formula for profit is revenue minus costs (R-C=P).
To maximize your radio advertising profit, you must generate as much revenue for a given media spend. How do you do this?
You put the right message in front of the right people at the right place and time for the right cost.
Notice that radio advertising cost is only one element out of many required for success in direct response radio advertising. Don't get me wrong, it's very important. But the key lies in taking the right perspective. A "radio advertising profit" perspective, not a "radio advertising cost" perspective.
The second point I want to make has two parts. Part A is that your radio commercial will have a huge impact on generating the maximum revenue for your given media spend. If you get this part right, your cost per lead (CPL) will be lower, and since that is the "top of the funnel", it has an impact on everything that follows - conversion, average revenue per order, and ultimately CPO or customer acquisition cost.
Part B is that creating an excellent direct response radio commercial is very challenging. In a recent post we discussed the field of linguistics and the idea of framing. To further illustrate the complexity of human psychology and how this relates to creating radio commercials, I encourage you to check out the article by Sharon Begley in Today's Wall Street Journal (Marketplace section) titled "Studies Take Measure of How Stereotyping Alters Performance". The article discusses several studies on stereotyping and the impact of stereotyping on performance. However, if you read closely you'll see how the researchers used framing in the design of their studies on stereotyping.
The results demonstrate just how complex human psychology is. In one study, 90% of subjects said that the instructions didn't influence their performance on a task. Yet the study results revealed that the use of framing did in fact influence subjects' behavior. Think about this. 90% of people couldn't tell that they were being significantly influenced by some simple verbal instructions. "It has an effect on an unconscious level" said one professor involved in the research.
So in radio advertising, and in creating radio commercials, we're not just working with what's on the surface. What we are doing is working on an unconscious level.
It is for this very reason that we take such a scientific approach to building direct response radio advertising campaigns. Sure, it's messy and difficult to control for every possible variable. But the alternative - a haphazard approach based on personal opinions - is worse.
And it's for this reason, plus many others, that we advocate a wider perspective on successful direct response radio advertising than simply focusing on radio advertising costs.
Instead of a focus on radio advertising costs, we advocate looking at the whole picture. Remember the goal is to have your radio advertising efforts result in a profit for your business. That means getting the most for each dollar spent. "R-C=P".
September 28, 2006
Why Does Business Ignore Lessons From Psychology?
The terrestrial radio industry was humming along and everything was hunky dory. Then along came satellite radio, ipods and internet streaming. Revenues started going sideways and what was the radio industry's reaction? Increase choices, shorten commercials, roll out HD radio... all in an effort match the wide variety of choices offered by satellite, ipod and the internet so listeners aren't lost to these other mediums.
But readily available research in psychology shows this to be a mistake.
Mark Ramsey recently profiled a conversation with author and psychologist Barry Schwartz. His book is called "Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less".
Mark's post does a great job of summarizing this issue, and Mr. Schwartz's book is full of insights that can be applied not only in radio advertising but also in many areas of our lives. The main point that's worth elevating out of this sea of insights is this:
Increasing choices without also offering a corresponding way to easily navigate and choose between them - what Mr. Schwartz calls "filters" - is an enormous mistake. Filters are currently absent in the way terrestrial radio presents its content - as a bunch of numbers on a dial that are not indicative of what you will get.
And without filters, says Schwartz:
"I think you're going to be less satisfied because you're not really consuming. You're spending all your time trying to decide what to consume and you miss half the song."
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