SANDY ORKIN, President

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How to Waste Money with Radio Advertising …

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Don’t get me wrong! I am all for the medium of radio when it comes to selling your product or service. In fact I swear by it! There are two primary elements involved in the process of using Radio to effectively promote whatever it is you are selling.

“THE BUY”.

If you are buying and placing the time yourself, then YOU need to do some research. You want to find the radio station(s) in your market(s) whose format and listeners will meet the criteria for your prospective customers. Now if you are simply buying radio in a single market in which you happen to live, the task becomes less complicated. Your familiarity with those stations will help you make that decision; on the other hand, you still must decide at what day part to run the spots. You need to look at the stations’ research to help you make that decision.

Should you need to buy airtime in multiple markets, more research is required. However, if you hire a media service to do all this work for you, the savings will be twofold. First a media buying service will have the statistics you need for every radio station in every market at their finger tips, They are experts at determining which radio stations target your prospects and when those listeners are most apt to be listening. You will save lots of time. Secondly, because the media buying service is making a multiple station buy for you, their leverage and their negotiation with those stations (sometimes group owned) may earn discounts and thereby save you some money.

So is that “all there is’? Will the proper placement of the buy insure you that you will be getting your money’s worth when using the medium of radio? Many business CEO’s, owners, and marketing directors may think so. But unfortunately, they are wrong!

“The Message”

Most of my youth, BT (before TV) was spent in front of a radio listening to” Heigh-ho Silver” or the “The Shadow Knows” , or Arthur Godfrey, Charlie McCarthy, etc. I was entertained. I was glued to the radio. I was emotionally invested in what I was hearing. Here’s my point. Radio is still one of the most intimate and entertaining media forms available to us.

Unless your message is entertaining and makes an emotional connection to the listener, why should anyone pay attention to it. Don’t under estimate the need for good creative radio commercials. If only ½ or ¼ of the listeners hear your message, then your investment in radio has been shortchanged. How many times have you changed the station during a commercial to avoid having to listen to someone making an announcement or someone shouting at you? Your message has to draw the listener “in”. The listener must find your message entertaining or compelling in order to identify with your product or service.

So, unless you want “little bang for your buck” with your radio advertising budget, don’t settle for getting half the job done. Find a good media buying service and find a company or ad agency whose business it is to understand the writing, the talent and the production you need to make your radio commercial the most effective it can be. Make sure your investment in RADIO doesn’t go in one ear and out the other.

Tags: entertainment, radio ads, Saving Money on Advertising
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Hats and Shoes

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

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?

Tags: ad agencies, advertising, creative ads, radio ads, radio commercials
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THE REAL TROUBLE WITH HARRY…..

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Is that he wants to pay us money for our expertise but doesn’t want to listen to what we have to say. He does the same thing when he goes to a doctor or calls his lawyer. He hires them and then ignores what they have to say. So you ask, “if he has money to throw away, why not take it”? Right? Wrong! Because, you see, Harry will rarely ever come back, and more often than not, we (along with his doctor and lawyer) will be blamed for not providing him with results he needs. To put it bluntly, Harry has big trust issues!

For 25+ years, we have specialized in the writing and producing of effective radio commercials. The key word here is “specialize”. Our clients are spending money for airtime because they believe in the medium of radio. However, local radio stations don’t always have the luxury of time, the personnel or the advertising expertise necessary to provide the special attention the client needs and deserves.

The consumer needs to LISTEN to (as opposed to just HEAR) the client’s message. The listener needs to react to it, to relate to it emotionally and to remember it. Unfortunately, Harry always wants to “tie us up in nots”. The goal for us is not to bow to the subjective whims of Harry. The goal is not to see how many times we can mention Harry’s name or product in the commercial. The goal is not to have the actors read lines to stroke Harry’s directorial or production jollies. And certainly the goal is not to jam all the facts we possibly can in any given commercial.

For us, the goal is to make the client’s message so distinctive that it will stand apart not only from their competitor’s message but from the clutter of ALL the messages. The goal is to deliver a message that is dramatic, entertaining, informative, memorable, and creates an emotional connection to the listener. The goal is to get results for our clients and thereby gain their trust.

That’s what we do…and that’s why clients who come back to us time and time again are never named HARRY.

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Radio Troubles?

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

I recently spoke with a radio consultant who had just returned from the Vegas NAB . He told me there seemed to be a consensus amongst many who attended that radio is getting a bad rap and is in serious trouble. Does this mean the demise of radio? Or, could it simply mean that radio is in need of repair?

Since its inception, radio formats have evolved to meet the demands of the audiences listening habits and changing lifestyles. And those changes continue, perhaps now, at it fastest pace ever. But none of these changes reflect the one constant about radio, i.e. it remains one of the most effective and intimate mediums available to advertisers.

So what’s the big deal about radio being an intimate medium? Well, simply put, if you understand advertising and its relationship to consumers, you would recognize that it’s our feelings and emotions that drive us to action (or reaction). If we don’t connect to what we hear then we can’t respond. We hear all kinds of stats about increases in radio listenership in all of its various forms. So then we can only assume that those listening to radio find some connection or feeling towards the music, the stimulation of talk radio, the excitement of sports, the banter of radio personalities, the need to be informed, etc.

Evidence and research indicate the medium of radio is as effective as it ever was. It still has the power to captivate and build listenership, to connect and relate to the listener in a feely-touchy kind of way. Yeah, let’s call it intimacy. So, I’m going out on a limb here and draw my own conclusion that if radio is truly in trouble, then it’s not the medium, but the system that prevents
advertisers from using and “experimenting with” radio.

If the advertisers message doesn’t emotionally connect to the listener or consumer, then why should that advertiser spend money in radio? Let’s stop blaming the medium and start to think about generating results for advertisers who have the potential to return to radio again and again and maybe even return with bigger budgets.

NEXT TIME, I’d like to focus on some suggestions how we can start changing the system and changing how we think about radio advertising..and not only at the radio station level, but at all size ad agencies as well as those in-house advertisers who fail to recognize that good radio advertising is as specialized as TV or print.

But first, do this. Make a concerted effort to listen to the commercials now airing. Do you hear what I hear? The morning personality who rips through a testimonial without a shred of credibility? Did you get that advertisers phone number? How about the second time? Were you able to jot down those individual sales item prices? Was it the sound of the announcer on that particular spot made you select one bank over another or one car dealer or another? Or was it the musical background? Or did the local carpet dealer shouting his message or the store owner’s bland recitation of the copy finally convinced you to flip to another radio station?

What do you mean you turned down the volume till the commercial ended?

Tags: advertising, emotional connection, radio, radio spots
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Response to ADWEEK-RAB MEETING

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

The Radio Advertising Bureau and the VCU Brandcenter at Virginia Commonwealth University held a 90-minute roundtable discussion on April 30 in New York with 11 of the ad world’s top creative directors. My Response to ADWEEK-RAB MEETING

The panel spoke of radio advertising in terms of the effectiveness of radio or lack thereof. They spoke of radio’s reach or lack thereof, of radio’s popularity or lack thereof, and simply, about how radio needs to get better.

However, no one addressed the real question: HOW TO MAKE BETTER RADIO ADS!

Read a newspaper or magazine and if the ads don’t catch your eye, you continue to flip pages. Watch TV commercials and if you don’t connect to the images and/or words, you scan the channels or play with you dog or head to the kitchen. Listen to the radio at work, home or in the car and if you don’t connect to any of those messages (that for the most part all sound the same) you will find a way to tune out.

Boring advertising gets passed over no matter the medium. Advertising that treats the end user like a consumerous boobus gets ignored. And advertising that is all about the advertiser instead of the customer gets tuned out.

So how to make better radio ads? A start might be for advertisers and their agencies to stop treating radio like an electronic post it note; stuffing everything that won’t fit into their TV or print ads into their radio spot. Because, after all, it’s only radio.

Like all good advertising messages, radio ads must connect emotionally to the consumer. And the same care that goes into the crafting of the TV and print message must be paid to the radio advertising creative. Ignore this and the advertiser is simply wasting his money and will, of course, (just as agency people or advertisers tend to do) jump to the conclusion that the medium of radio has failed them.

Good radio ads are emotionally relevant, generate response, and must be shrouded in a cloak of creativity. Ad Agencies simply don’t recognize these facts which is why TV and Print take a front seat to Radio. How many agencies will take the audio from a TV track and simply edit it for use it on radio? How many agencies or advertisers have a specialized staff devoted ONLY to radio? You can count on one hand the number of articles that appear in advertising trades that focus on radio during the course of a year. No wonder radio gets such a bad rap. Too bad for advertisers! Too bad for Radio!