For many years, both the radio industry and listeners have complained about long stop sets. Recent research has indicated that bad commercials are just as likely to cause turnout as the long break from music.
Program Directors often cringe when they hear that commercial that has the phone number in it three times or a grammatically incorrect, poorly produced piece.
So, what should be done about it? I spoke with a former producer for a major broadcast company who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity.
“I think there’s a couple of boxes that need to be checked off to fix what’s wrong. One of them is to get rid of long spot blocks. Then you’re in a position where you can start to hit and run with smaller, quicker commercials.”
“And one idea per spot. I know jocks who do the same thing. How many times have we said, as Program Directors, one idea per break?”
“Well, spots should be the same, one idea per spot. If you’ve got a client who has multiple things going on or multiple services or wants to hone in on two or three things that he thinks are pain points that he’d like to get across to his customer, then do separate spots for each one and rotate them. I don’t know how many times I see 30-second commercials crammed with two or three ideas.”
“Studies have shown that every time you introduce a new idea into a commercial and step away from your original idea, retention goes down by 60%. If you’ve added three, then it’s even worse than that.”
“I think that’s another reason why some people hang on to 60-second spots, because they have a lot of territory they want to cover, and they can’t do it in a 30. But why it doesn’t occur to them to do it in separate spots is beyond me.”
The idea of “selling something” in the commercial is something he sees as a waste.
“Focus on people who don’t like to be sold to. Think in more macro terms; when you’re putting radio commercials together, don’t list off prices and particular products. Think about lifestyle; look at the commercials that you think are successful. People say, oh, listeners hate commercials. No, they don’t. They hate bad ones.”
“Half this country tunes into the Super Bowl, not for the game, but for the commercials. Good copy and entertaining commercials can be effective. And you look at any of those commercials that you see that are memorable; they aren’t rattling off price and features. They’re dealing with lifestyle issues.”
“You’ll hear bundle home and auto together. But other than that, it’s a comedy routine. So, you need to think about those kinds of terms to make your copy entertaining.”
He also considers it critical to have a copywriter and never lets a salesperson pick up a pen, with one exception.
“Never let a salesperson pick up a pen unless it’s to fill out an order. Don’t let clients or salespeople write copy. I don’t want a salesperson sitting at his desk writing copy; I want them out selling.”
It sounds like there might be a story there.
“I had an AE come in with a commercial written on a napkin from lunch with a client. I looked at it and said, ‘”Did your client write this copy himself?”’
And letting them write bad copy cascades into more significant issues.
“What is this thing going to run for a week or so, two weeks? And you know what’s going to happen? You’re going to go back to him to try and get him to re-up, and he’s going to tell you, no, I tried radio, and it didn’t work.”
“And the worst part is, he’s going to go to the Chamber of Commerce golf tournament in a week or two, and he’s going to tell everybody that he plays golf with at the Chamber of Commerce that he tried radio, and it didn’t work, because you couldn’t leave $500 on the table. That’s the worst part about putting bad copy on the air for clients. But typically, I find that our problem is we have AEs who were trained improperly, if at all, by guys from the 90s who were over-glorified order-takers.”
What are some of his copy pet peeves?
“Nobody should be in this day and age when listeners have a smaller attention span than a goldfish airing 60-second commercials anymore. I hear them all the time, especially on small-market radio stations. I’m not going to cite the market, but I did some work for it.”
“Their rock star salesperson, who’s been there for 25 years, still sells 60-second commercials to her clients. She had one restaurant client who ran off every lunch special they were having for the entire week in their commercial. This commercial gets updated every Friday for the following week.”
“Now, if you’re driving along listening, are you going to retain what each special is for the entire week? No, of course not. I suggested to her that she put a 30 together and change it each day with at least that day or tomorrow’s special.”
And how was that idea received?
“They’re still airing that 60-second commercial every week, rattling on every single special for the for the week. And that’s just not effective. But that thing that you and I hate, what do you hear when you try to suggest something different? Well, that’s the way we’ve always done it.”
We agreed that the copy that says, “next to McDonald’s or Walmart” is problematic.
“You’re assuming that the person who’s listening knows exactly where you are and what McDonald’s you’re talking about. And I mean, in some smaller markets, I suppose the geography is not that complicated.”
Another idea is to use a shorter commercial as a gateway to your own platform, which will allow you to cover more territory at a lower cost.
“In this day and age, where we have the internet, where you can have a website that’s got all kinds of good stuff in it, or even send out a weekly email blast to your customers, which is a highly effective way of reaching advertisers.”
“When I first started doing websites 30 years ago, I used to tell my clients who at that time were used to buying 60-second radio commercials, or worse half, page newspaper ads for hundreds of dollars, Buy a smaller ad and sell lifestyle don’t sell price, don’t sell particular items, sell a vibe about what your business is and then drive people to your website. Because the real estate there is not being charged per agate line or 30 seconds or per minute, you can put as much stuff as you want there.”
“Use your radio, newspaper, and television as your gateway to a platform that’s not costing you as much. And I think that can be the same with social media and email newsletters that people can sign up for.
“Use your radio to entertain; there’s no reason radio commercials can’t be as entertaining as everything else on the air. You certainly wouldn’t be as apt to lose listeners when commercial breaks came on if the commercial content was as entertaining as everything else that you had on the air. And if you’re looking for radio to be in a position to charge more for spots, that’s certainly one way to do it.”
Final thoughts?
“Hire a writer, hire a writer, hire a writer, there used to be writers in radio stations back in the 70s and 80s copywriters. And they were one of the first things to go along with the promotions budget.”
“The average American spends about 15 to 20 minutes in the car in the morning or afternoon drive time. If you’re running an eight or nine-minute spot block, you’re pushing the entire drive time that that guy is spending in the vehicle. He’s going to be lucky if he hears one song.”
“Nobody wants to listen to that. I think the only saving grace radio still has is that a lot of older demographics don’t like to mess around with technology, having to hook their phone up when they get into the vehicle or having to find an app or a stream icon and put they just want to get into the car on and have the music there.”
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Jeff Lynn serves as Editor of Barrett Media’s Music Radio coverage. Prior to joining Barrett Media, Jeff spent time programming in Milwaukee, Omaha, Cleveland, Des Moines, and Madison for multiple radio groups, including iHeartMedia, Townsquare Media, NRG Media, and Entercom (now Audacy). He also worked as a Country Format Editor for All Access until the outlet shut down in August 2023.
To get in touch with Jeff by email, reach him at Jeff@BarrettMedia.com.
