Every ad can become annoying. Even if it was interesting or funny hearing it the 1st 2nd and 5th time, it can certainly lose its appeal hearing it a 25th time, and more. Which, could turn a positive impression into a negative one. So on behalf of all loyal radio, streaming, and podcast listeners… the ones who didn’t plan on switching the station but just might if annoyed enough by hearing the same thing over and over… please stop running the same advertisement for long periods of time. Audio ads are very affordable to create, so create more ads and tell more of your story! Yes, repeating the same simple message is good for memory recall, but variations of your story can help prevent audience tune out and annoyance. Tell listeners some behind the scenes stories, experiences of your great service, or products listeners might not have known you had. There are endless things you can promote with your audio real estate, so take advantage of it and run updated ads and/or rotate a few at the same time. Booking great time slots is one thing, but making the most effective use of them is another. Whether a radio spot, streaming audio or podcast ad, keep listeners interested by telling them more and more. Need assistance and ideas to write a full campaign versus just one radio spot?… we can help.
Tag Archives: radio production
The Value of Spec Spots
This is a story, from Before I worked in the radio industry. I was employed at a restaurant, and was involved in their advertising decisions (because I just happened to be a recent College graduate in the Radio and Advertising field). Time after time we would see Marketing Reps from the local Newspaper, Magazines, TV stations, and numerous Radio stations come in and pitch their product. They would leave rates, specials and promotions they were doing… which all left the owner of the restaurant – Unenthused. To cut to the chase, it’s likely because these reps were simply asking for money to be in their product…in their newspaper, on their radio station, etc. Never was their pitch about the restaurant. The odd time an idea would be ‘mentioned’, or an actual radio commercial ‘script’ brought by, but mostly the pitch was ‘our radio station this and that, advertise with us’.
But then one day, a new sales rep from a radio station came in with a radio – a ‘ghetto blaster’ it was called. (Yes this term ages me). He asked for 30 seconds of our time, and then played a radio ad custom made for the restaurant. Wow. That was the first time I ever saw the restaurant owner’s eyes light up about advertising. I could see her wheels spinning, thinking about how many people would hear about the restaurant, the image that would be established, the potential new customers… all because she heard a radio commercial for her restaurant, instead of just hearing about a radio station rate card. It was shortly after that I started working in the radio field, and would bring up the potential value of spec spots. For the radio station reps who embraced it, they set up more meetings and presentations. They were happy to have a creative idea to present, a recorded sample of how the client could sound on the air…instead of just selling the radio station. For them, Spec Spots became a foot in the door, ‘breaking the ice’, a conversation topic, a better impression on the potential client. Why better? Because the conversation was about the client, and how they could sound on the air. The radio sales reps were presenting possibilities, ideas, something more exciting than the cost of advertising. And the cost of doing this for the radio station was minimal, but the payoff was new clients, or existing clients committing to more air time. Sure not every meeting landed a new client, but every meeting established more attention and appreciation from businesses than just asking for a purchase order. When Overnight Radio was founded, one main aspect of our value, is creating spec spots. An idea not thought of before, a sound that’s not the usual afternoon voice at the radio station, something unique to present to a potential client…that could very well finally make them a (bigger) client. So if you’re a monthly package client of Overnight Radio, don’t forget the value of Spec Spots. Radio Spec Spots are one of the most cost-effective ways to pitch ideas and impress clients. So use your units effectively, pick a client and request a spec spot. Happy Selling, Sincerely, Jaysen Cole.
Voice talent and landscaping.
Who doesn’t love to save money? It’s one of my favorite hobbies.
I mow my own lawn…I buy my own groceries. Imagine having to pay for that? A lot of money wasted, especially since it’s relatively easy.
But the hobby of saving money buy doing it yourself has diminishing returns as you move along the scale of tasks from easy to hard.
Sure I save on landscaper costs when i mow my own lawn, but when i try to add sod or cut down large trees, I run the risk of doing it improperly and inadvertently costing me more in the end when i need to replace the sod i laid down incorrectly or when i need to pay for my neighbors roof repairs when the tree i chopped down fell onto his house.
The same is true for any profession. In my industry, people try to cross lines all the time. Writers think they are voice talents, voice talents think they can write, producers think they can predict what commercial will work and what won’t.
For the most part, none of the above scenarios work. Because each professional is trained in a different yet similar aspect of the radio industry. Sometimes they overlap, and that’s where the confusion enters.
Let’s take the producer. He/she works with scripts every day of their lives, and to some extent, their opinions on a scripts worth, is…worth something. They’ve seen it all, from good to bad and all in-between. BUT, that ability to pick out a bad or good script, does NOT mean they are writers. All it means is that they have a general awareness of something they see every day. Like a building you pass by on the way to work. You know the one side of it’s wall very well. But there is a whole building inside you know nothing about…have yet to enter and probably wont.
It’s not that the producer knows nothing…they know a lot…but 99% of their knowledge is about production, and how scripts relate to their line of work. The inner workings of how that script came to be are unknown to the producer, and as such, renders what they know about writing to being very limited.
Let’s take the voice talent. They have a microphone, a computer and an audio program to record their voice. They have the basic knowledge of how to turn it all on, get a signal, record, and render to an mp3 or wav. Which is all they need to know – because their focus has always been on the read, the sound and cadence of their voice, as well it should be.
Some notice in their audio program, the ability to compress, eq and other effects. They have heard of these, so why not do it myself? Of course, this is similar to saying you know how to properly cut down a tree because you know what an ax is.
When voice talent start moving into the producers field, all sorts of accidents can happen. Too much compression, improper eq, sometimes even reverb is added. This has the same effect as the tree. It will cost you money since producers will shy away from using you since you have already pee’d in the pool.
Just like scripts are not a producers forte , a voice talent’s eq and compression settings are not theirs to handle. Put the ax down.
I know voice talent who tell other talent to compress the heck out of their voice, as if it will help them sound better and in turn get more work. It does not. It’s like your neighbor telling you to poison the heck out of your lawn so you won’t have to mow it anymore. Sure, you don’t have to mow it, but it’s also dead. The neighbor has no ill will, they are just ill-informed. Which makes them unprofessional.
You, and your voice, or your scripts or your productions, SHOULD be professional. Stay in your lane, and let the others do their job. Make sure what you’re doing helps the other professionals in your surrounds to do their jobs. ie: record a clean signal of a great read, don’t add ANYTHING to it, render it to the preferred format, and done.
The goal here is to let the landscaper do their work. Mowing the lawn is one thing (akin to recording your own voice) but landscaping is quite another. Let the professionals do their thing, and you can do yours.
To Sound Cool, Look The Fool.
Radio production is fun. In many cases, it requires a funny looking face to voice the spot in the correct way. Even when the topic is not funny. Voice talent scrunch their faces to get the word out just right.
I have found that i cannot voice ANY spot without putting my arms in the air like I just don’t care. Apparently this helps me get the words in my head out to the mic.
If someone asks you for a hard sell, DO an actual hard sell. Yell if you have to (turn your gain down of course)…but do what you have to do to get the desired read for your client.
If you cant do it because you are in your home closet and your child is asleep in the next room, then do it later. Or more importantly, re-assess where you are voicing from.
Do not voice slightly louder than normal and hit send. That is not a hard sell. That is a slightly louder than normal read.
But this isn’t about hard sells, it’s about looking like an idiot.
If a script requires you to laugh, do an ACTUAL laugh. Think about something funny, ask your loved one to tickle you…tickle yourself! Start fake laughing till it sounds so funny that you actually laugh at it.
If you are asked to sound conversational, literally try and work that into your actual conversational voice. Think about how you speak to your friends or spouse and use that tone. Newbies and professionals alike have trouble with this one. Not only because they are in front of a mic (some are transfixed by it), but often the text is not conversational.
Which is a fair point…BUT if you can fit those words into your natural cadence, the job will still get done…a conversational read with non-conversational words. Then it’s the copywriters problem to revise it upon hearing it if it still sounds disjointed. But the point is, YOU as the voice talent did your job.
If you are asked to do a silly voice, do a silly voice – this usually requires you to be loud and look like an idiot. And I realize, you need self confidence to do this. But if you are in the voice talent industry, you won’t last long without it. So get some, and start sounding silly.
In my experience, voice talent that don’t want to look the fool while voicing, look the fool later when they are being sent the same types of scripts over and over again. This means you are considered to only have one type of read…ie: not versatile.
If you aren’t versatile, jobs that would have come your way (the old lady character, the mouse character, the angry boss, the busy bee, the goofy mom, the old prospector) are going to someone else.
And what’s left for you, is the announcer tag. BUT there are already a million announcers willing to voice a dignified tag. And you better have a super fine announcer voice to compete with all the others.
If you don’t…then you’d better be willing to look the fool while voicing…because ANY voice willing to look silly, is going to get work.
Because in the end, looking stupid will make you sound great, and that will make you FEEL great when you see all the work in your inbox.
Precise Goals = Disappointment
To get anywhere, you need a goal.
When you are young, goals can be very precise ” ‘i want to be a race car driver in nascar”.
As you get older and see more of the world, your goals tend to broaden: ‘i want to be a race car driver”.
And then go even broader: “i want to work with race cars”…and finally, ‘i want to work with cars’.
The last one is a cup half full/half empty situation. Some people would see it as a loss (no longer heading to nascar) and others as a gain (you have so much more opportunity to find your true self with a wide net).
The same is true when it comes to radio commercial scripting and production. When you have an idea in your head for a client…it sounds and feels a certain way. The proper way of course – (like the nascar dream).
Then when you see it in script form, you realize that there are barriers to your idea, timing, length, word restrictions, all things that whittle down the idea.
After you get through all that, your idea is finally on the page and although it’s not as good as the one in your head, it’s still pretty good (you are still a race car driver) and it looks like a winner.
Now, comes the production. You of course had a voice in mind, and are there for the session to make sure it goes exactly like you planned on the script. Of course, the voice over artist says things a bit differently than you do, or the cadence that is natural for them doesn’t quite match the initial feeling of the script. So you change it up a bit to match the talents strengths, and the parts that didn’t change, sound different from how you voiced it in your head…but it’s still a great spot.
Then it’s off to production, where the music choices just don’t have the perfect beat, the bass line, or feel you were looking for, but they open your mind to adding a sound effect that perfectly compliments the script addition you made for the voice talent earlier.
The spot you have created is an A-1 commercial, ready to air and garner results for your client. This is the part where you realize your nascar dream, turned into a real goal of working with cars.
Instead of being disappointed that it’s not the same sound as inside your head, you realize that nothing stays the same from birth…including people…i certainly don’t look the same as i did when i was a baby, and to expect your creative idea to be exactly the same as in your head as when it is finally finished, is to put unrealistic expectations on your baby/idea.
Going into the process knowing your idea will grow and change will help you realize your goal. The goal is to be a success, whether it’s to work with cars, a baby, or your script.
Know that being in the world changes things, and usually for the better. Because it’s only in the real world, that results can happen.
Broaden your expectations for your creations…you can’t get results from a dream.