Creating effective radio commercials requires the wearing of proper hats and shoes.

It is a commercial production company or ad agency’s job to “wear their clients’ hat” to fully understand the product or service being sold, to know whom they compete against and to understand the nature of their targeted consumer. After all, it’s those potential end-users of the product or service whose attention they need to garner.

It is also their job to “walk in the shoes” of radio listeners. It is the audience that both they and the client need to reach. It is the audience who needs to respond to the message buried within that 60 or 30 second time frame. This goal unto itself is simple to understand, but the execution represents a challenge that is often hampered by the client’s preconceived notion that the radio listener will automatically focus their attention to their radio commercial message simply because it’s on the air. There is a vast distinction between a radio listener who HEARS the commercial and a radio listener who LISTENS AND RESPONDS to the commercial.

Many clients simply fail to walk in “the listener’s shoes” but rather step into their own shoes, their colleague’s shoes, or their family’s and friend’s shoes. All those shoes just happened to be laced with a personal stake in the product or service. 99.99% of the radio listeners reached by their message have no reason to pay attention to the client’s message. They simply don’t share that affinity to the product or service.

The business owner or marketing exec (client) must change his footwear and walk in the shoes of those “no personal connection” radio listeners to fully understand their listening habits, i.e. what makes them pay attention, what makes them respond and what makes them remember the message. The client could spend a great deal of time on research, spend lots of money on focus groups, or spend a great deal of time seeking statistical data from broadcast associations, etc.

Or they can find a radio specialist who has already “broken in” those shoes, who understands HOW to get those listeners to hear, listen AND respond to their commercials, who understand the need for creativity, thought and more thought (brainstorming) before that message is unequivocally ready to go on the air and grab the attention of the radio listener.

So check your closet! Do you have the proper hats and shoes?