by Paulo Dias (@therealptp) The true power of radio lies in the ability of a presenter to connect with the audience on a local — and latterly — a hyperlocal level.
The best presenters are real and authentic. They sound like the audience sounds. They have the conversations we all have. Whether it’s high-level political debate or simply commenting upon a Kim Kardashian tweet, we resonate with presenters and radio stations who serve as an extension of our own circle of friends. The relationship we have with our radio stations is different to the relationship we have with other media platforms purely for this reason: we feel part of the station because it’s authentic.
That’s why we hate pre-recorded 30” radio spots.
Nothing real
There is nothing real about two badly stereotyped kugels having banal conversation in what’s supposed to be an upmarket hair salon. There is nothing authentic about hiring a local voice artist to put on an American accent.
The problem is we’ve become so used to spots like this that, as creatives, we keep writing them and, as clients, we keep approving them because we’ve been conditioned to believe that this is what 30” radio spots should sound like. (I’m using the “30” spot” as a blanket term to refer to all normal generic radio ads, regardless of duration, as I believe 60” spots suffer the same fate — except we’ve now got double the amount of time to be disingenuous, annoy people and propagate poor stereotypes.)
I don’t believe there is a magic formula to writing good radio. There are tactics we can use and, more often than not, those will help us write decent radio but how can we make 30” spots more than just nonsensical white noise and the things that listeners ignore until we’re back into their favourite music or the return of the presenter?
Genuine
How about, when we sit down to put together a generic radio spot, we stop being the thing that tries so hard to interrupt and stand out from radio programming and look to be the thing that sounds like radio programming? There are very few methods of advertising more powerful than a presenter talking about your product or brand. They don’t have to be in full endorsement mode; they don’t have to sound like a tacky infomercial; they just have to sound real and genuine.
A respected presenter talking about a hair product or financial service in a warm and genuine way to their audience is so much more-powerful and -impactful than two made-up characters — who we have zero relationship with — in a non-descript environment building up to a poor punch line about their husbands so that they can sell a product.
Just because radio is cheap to produce, it doesn’t need to sound that way.
‘Voice of the people’
Maybe people who write for radio have been bamboozled by this “theatre-of-the-mind” line. But what does it really mean anymore? Do people still go to theatre enough for that to be a relevant reference point? Are we producing theatrical radio because we’ve been sold the “theatre-of-the-mind” spiel?
So let’s not do ‘theatre of the mind’. Let’s do ‘voice of the people’. Let’s make radio advertising as relevant as radio programming — and, to do that, we need to be real, not have bad American accents and not be kugels or bagels (among other things).
People like radio presenters so, when creating radio ads, let’s just be that.
Paulo Dias (@therealptp) is the head of creative integration at Ultimate Media. He works closely with the programming teams at leading radio stations to help implement commercial messaging into their existing formats.
“Motive” is a by-invitation-only column on MarkLives.com. Contributors are picked by the editors but generally don’t form part of our regular columnist lineup, unless the topic is off-column.
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