Radio Commercials: Don't Just Play Less....Make Them Better

From Corey Deitz,Your Guide to Radio.

Opinion
Earlier this week, J.P. Morgan released the results of a survey which found commercial-free music is the one thing above all else which is creating a paying listener base for Satellite Radio.

DUH.

Stephen Wang, an analyst for J.P. Morgan said, "What it comes down to is, the absence of commercials on satellite radio still reigns as the No. 1 driver of demand. Unique content, on the other hand, appears to be the least important factor, which implies that the loss of Howard Stern and other programming should not have too negative an impact."

Wang also went on to say that Satellite Radio will continue to erode the listenership monopolized for so long by traditional, terrestrial radio.

Yes, listeners really hate commercials. So much in fact, Clear Channel Radio, owner of some 1200 radio stations, recently introduced a chain-wide revision of its commercial policy called “Less is More”.

The idea is to play less commercials. Well, that’s a good start. But, less can also be made better throughout the industry.

Let me digress for a moment to make a point. I’m sure you’ve noticed that when it comes to the Super Bowl, people actually look forward to the commercials. They sit there and watch them! The next day they talk about the ones they liked the most!

So, is it that people hate commercials so much or - is it just that they hate commercials which offer them nothing?

Ask an average listener what they think of typical radio commercials and they will probably tell you they are either:

1. Annoying

2. Boring and/or repetitive

3. Have no entertainment value or

4. They insult the listener’s intelligence.

Imagine if Radio could consistently produce commercials which countered those negative traits? Why, people would actually listen through “stop sets” (the portion of radio programming where the music stops and the commercials begin).

Wouldn’t it be something if, as a listener, you didn’t feel compelled to punch over to another radio station the minute a commercial began? I can tell you Program Directors across the country would be thrilled.

I believe it is not only possible, but essential that traditional Radio begins to once again, apply the rule of entertainment to all aspects of its programming.

Let me digress again to make another point. When a radio personality applies for a job, he/she sends an “aircheck”, which is an audio demo of how he sounds on-the-air doing a real show. A long time ago I was told that if your aircheck didn’t impress the Program Director in the first 10 or 15 seconds, you were tossed into the waste bin. I think it’s true because being a Program Director twice, that’s about all I ever gave someone’s aircheck.

If our standards as Radio people are so stringent for entertainment value, why should we expect our listeners to have a lower standard? In other words: every commercial should be entertaining enough to quickly grab the listener’s attention and imagination.

So then, how does Radio do this? It starts with a commitment to flush out, once-and-for-all, some of the awful techniques and habits that have seeped into the state of our current commercial production:

1.Don’t encourage clients to voice their own commercials - especially if they are just plain horrible - just for the sake of the sale. If an account executive is talented enough to sell commercial time, he should be talented enough to talk a client out of doing his own spot.

2. Commercials should never consist of just a voice reading copy over a music bed. I’m sorry, but that’s just not compelling enough.

3. Radio stations should consider hiring copywriters again – talented people who can create engaging 30 or 60 second theater of the mind commercials. Today, most commercials are written by sales people. Bless their hearts: they made the sale – don’t make them write the copy, too.

4. Radio stations should seek out Production Directors (the people in charge of overseeing the making of the commercials) who are not comfortable settling for mediocrity.

5. Production Directors should always insure the right commercial version is running in the right format. Some products, like Coke and Pepsi, for instance, create commercials designed for specific formats: Rock, R&B, Alternative, etc. I’ve heard R&B versions run on Alternative stations and vice versa. That’s lazy and a disservice to the listeners. Someone listening to a Classic Rock station is not much interested in hearing a hip-hop version of a Pepsi commercial.

6. Radio stations should never accept sub-standard production from advertising agencies. It is unbelievable what some smaller agencies pass off as radio-quality production. And worse: some radio stations don’t even question it.
In short: every moment of airtime at a radio station should be treated as if its entertainment potential could mean the difference between a listener staying or leaving….because it does.

If traditional radio stations adopted a “Super Bowl mentality” when it came to those 12 or so minutes of commercial time each hour, then maybe the promise of commercial-free music on Satellite Radio wouldn’t be as alluring to listeners.