Your Guide to the Most Popular Radio Ad Faux Pas of Our Time
by Ryan Faist
credit: bbaltimore
If you’re looking for a good way to ruin your next radio ad, just turn on the radio and listen. That’s the best place to find world-class examples of how to do it. I guarantee you’ll hear ads that may have looked good on paper, but somehow manage to just add more noise to the two minutes of indistinguishable and ineffective clutter that is sandwiched between the actual radio programs. So how does this happen?
Well, there are many simple ways to ruin a radio ad. Some people like to start with a bad idea. That always works well. Others prefer to kill a good idea with poor execution. But most of the time, it comes down to the strategy when writing. Addressing the wrong audience, speaking from your business’s point of view instead of your customer’s, and wasting precious time repeating a phone number that nobody will remember are all good ways to ruin a radio ad.
However, the best way to ruin a radio ad is the one used most often. It’s the trump card of ways; the easiest method to ruin your radio ad no matter how good your idea or how great your execution. And chances are, you’re doing it already.
First, you need to know that nearly every ad on the radio is overstuffed with information. That’s a fact. Sometimes you can actually hear how the voice-over has been sped up electronically just to fit it all in. Overstuffing your ad is the single most effective thing you can do when you don’t want people to remember anything about it – other than its bloviating. It’s also the most common way to ruin a radio ad because you can do it without even trying. Hell, most people overstuff their ad accidentally. They don’t even know they’ve done it!
All you have to do is write too much voice-over. That’s it – the trump card for ruining your radio ad. Here’s how it’s done. To be certain a sixty-second radio ad sounds like all the others, write more than 160 words of voice-over. If you can get it up to 200, you’re on your way. The more, the better. You want your narrator speaking so fast that he or she sounds like a tongue-twisting spokesman rattling off bids at an auction. What you don’t want is for your narrator to speak slowly and clearly. Radio ads rarely do this because it’s a good way to ensure that people actually hear what is being said. It also increases people’s chances of recalling that information later, which may actually increase sales. You don’t want that.
So you see, it’s not so hard to ruin your radio ad. There are lots of ways, and I’m sure you can find one that suits you. But if you’re looking for something that will work every time, something that promises to ruin a radio ad that otherwise might have been great, just write too much voice-over. It works like a charm for everyone else.
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