Friday, July 17, 2009

Don't Write Your Radio Ad!

Is it just me or have others out there noticed how bad radio advertising has gotten?

Here in the midst of folks searching the Internet for information about products and services or soliciting word-of-mouth advice from the social networks like Twitter and Facebook along comes a rash of radio ads based on jingles and slapstick, no relevance humor.

Oh that list can go on from the automobile companies to the temp agencies to the power companies to the airlines… they are all like what we Baby Boomers heard on air back in the 1960s.

And I don’t think any of them are out to be retro!

This morning, I heard a new radio ad for AT&T Wireless.

It opened with a gal and guy talking back and forth of which she makes a double-entendre comment about his lack of getting it up! And they weren’t even talking via an AT&T phone – they were talking in person.

Seriously, I am not kidding.

The ad goes on with more slapstick exchange and little relevance to me as an AT&T Wireless customer.

As many know, I am a strong advocate of cultivating brand cultures through the conveyance of the emotional brand experience, but I cannot figure out how the chief creative got his or her wires that crossed.

Unless, of course, there is a new CMO on the client side that thinks that humor like that grabs audience attention and there is already writing on the wall that the account is soon going into review.

There is no question about it. Radio is a challenging medium.

For years, radio stations have scraped and scratched to deliver the outdated advertising model of reach and frequency

Today advertisers can purchase zoned sections of the newspaper… they can purchase television by cable zone... they can buy national magazines by geographic market… they can purchase key lifestyle groups by ZIP+4 list screeners… but rifle-targeting audience groups using radio?

No… advertisers cannot.

And radio hasn’t really worked to find much of an alternative option.
Perhaps the radio stations have the inside track. Those Gen X brand managers just love to script those radio spots… well they even write those out on the back of the bar napkins!

And those radio production recording studio owners are probably the ones buying the drinks.

And finally, God love the agency account execs who know that if they lose the account their job is out the door…

So… if you love to journey back in time… go turn on that radio and spin the dial.

Oh… and by the way, after those ads have aired and the radio stations have raked in their media dollars, I would wager to bet that the guy on the client side will be sending out his resume.

And I’ll further bet that it will be in paper form and copied out at the local duplicating house.

Well go and Tweak your business friends, remind them that 2010 is just around the corner, I’ll set the dial on NPR and… Hey, Let’s Journey!

No comments: