The thing that bothers me the most when it comes to radio commercial is that advertisers seem to want their listeners to know they are listening to a commercial. For some reason, advertisers seem to think that a commercial is only good if it sounds exactly like all the others.
We, as an audience, have learnt over the course of our life to block out advertisements. We tune out as soon as we hear something that remotely sounds like an advert.
The main problem is that most advertisers are afraid to do it wrong. Their adverts can’t be daring or different, so they just settle for invisible.
We have all heard thousands of radio ads. We all know what a typical radio ad sounds like. The key is to avoid sounding like a typical radio advert.
Below are a few (of many) cliches used in radio adverts that should be avoided at all costs.
1. Long addresses, websites or complex phone numbers
Your audience are often listening to the radio whilst doing something else; be it driving, working, cooking or cleaning. Throwing in your complex phone number or lengthy URL in a Call-To-Action will make your listener’s attention wander. Don’t waste any of the valuable time that your advert could use to actually connect with your listener.
If you do have a simple website URL (eg. www.brandname.com) then feel free to mention it. However, if your URL is mega complex and hard to remember (www.your-brand-name-and-where-itz-based.biz) then do not bother mentioning it.
We are in a digital age so all you have to do is tell your audience to Google you. From there, they can find everything they need to know about you; including your phone number and lengthy web address. Of course, that does mean you have to make sure your website is discoverable when people search for you, but that will be worth the effort.
If your advert entices and interests your audience enough they will find the small details on their own.
2. Too much dialogue
Cramming loads of words in a short amount of time will not work. The unnatural pace will distract and put the listener off. Plus, how are they going to remember all that information?
Find one selling point and stick to it. Take the most interesting point about your business and talk about that. If you interest your audience enough, they will then research you and find out everything else.
Repetition is important. It is said that an ad has to be heard seven times before it is acted upon. So, keeping that consistent message is key.
3. List of price point
Nothing screams ‘commercial’ more than an advert that says “On sale for £25.99 for a limited time only”.
Hammering price points into your listener’s head will not make your campaign work, trust me on this one. One good price point is enough. The more price points you include, the less effective they become.
You want to make a personal connection with your listener so do not waste precious message time by including these. Instead, build a story or tell a joke around a single price point.
4. Any cheesy sound effect
They are annoying and cringey. It’s 2017, leave the whooshes, boings and laser sounds where they belong, in the 1980’s. Enough said.
5. Scripted product reviews
We have all heard cheesy adverts like these and we all know they are fake;
“Hey Joe, how are you doing?”
“Great! Thanks to Zap Detergent, my brand new dishwasher detergent, my dishes are cleaner than ever!”
“Are you talking about the revolutionary Zap Detergent that is powerful enough to remove coffee stains and prevents cloudy film for crystal clear dishes?”
Have you ever had a conversation with a friend that goes like that? I didn’t think so. And you never will. Adverts like these do not sound authentic and will instantly make your listener tune out.
If you do have a conversation in your ad, make sure it sounds like real people having a chat i.e. do not make them deliver information – people don’t do that.
6. Customer Service
No one is going to visit you solely based on the reason your customer service is up to scratch. Your customer service is what you prove when a customer visits your business, not on an advert. Talking about customer service has been done to death and becomes unbelievable and uninteresting.
Furthermore, everyone has “friendly and knowledgeable staff”. It is what employees are there for – it will not make you stand out from any competition. If your staff doesn’t treat your customers with “respect, friendliness and quick service” then you have bigger problems to think about before you start radio advertising.
Give your listeners a real reason to visit you. Be different, be exciting and don’t talk about how much people adore your business. Give your listeners a reason to want to try out your business for themselves so they can find out for themselves how great your service really is.
Your adverts need to be different and original and attention grabbing. Be daring, be bold and don’t be afraid to stand out. Remember, audio is an emotional medium – cater to the heart rather than the mind.
Are there any radio ad cliches that I’ve missed out? Leave a comment below.
Your radio station cannot survive without conducting ongoing efforts to understand your listeners’ needs.
To discover if your radio station is having a positive effect and creating listener loyalty, you must take the time to understand their needs and respond to them. Acquiring listener feedback does not have to be expensive. By just conducting simple questionnaires or asking for your listeners to leave feedback in the comment section on your Facebook status, you can learn a lot about what your listeners want.
Listen
The most important step that your radio station must take to understand your listeners is by listening to them. Whether you are hosting a competition or have invited a listener to be featured on the radio, take a minute to ask them why they listen to your station and what your radio station could do to improve. You could even write a status or a tweet asking your listeners if they are happy with your station.
Empathise
Remember that when your listener offers your radio station feedback, take time to put yourself in their place and empathise with them. Acknowledge your listeners for putting in the time and effort to comment. Do not treat them with bias just because they may have an issue with your radio station. Always allow your listener to tell their story, then offer ways to meet their needs.
Research
If you want your radio station to gain more listeners and increase current listener loyalty, you must research your competition.
Tune in to other local stations to see what their unique selling point is. Conduct a phone or email survey of your potential listeners to discover the best qualities of other radio stations. Then, replicate some of these qualities in your radio station.
Remember that failure to understand your listener’s needs can result in negative comments or reviews about your radio station. Always go the extra mile to ensure that your listeners have a voice and are being heard.
According to BIA/Kelsey‘s new report, US mobile ad spending will grow from $33 billion in 2016 to $72 billion by 2021 (a 17 percent compound annual growth rate). Furthermore the located targeted portion of overall mobile ad spend is predicted to grow from $12.4 billion (2016) to $32.4 billion in 2021. In other words, this growth translates to 38% of mobile ad revenues today, growing to 45% by 2021.
Having seen this report, I was interested in finding out how companies were making the most of mobile ad spend.
Snapchat
Snapchat will contribute to this targeted mobile ad spend by teaming up with Nielson‘s mobile digital ad ratings unit (AdWeek). Snapchat’s advertisers will be able to buy guaranteed audiences by age and gender. This move will be giving brands another purchasing option; the other Snapchat campaign buying method, via its ads API,will remain available.
YouTube
Google have also followed trend and are making YouTube a better place for advertiser. Over 50% of YouTube views now happen on mobile, so Google are now focusing on building scalable solutions that will work across screens (Google).
Google announced on 20th January 2017 that they will be developing a new, cloud-based measurement solution over the next year. This solution will allow advertisers and agencies better insights from their YouTube campaigns. Brands will be able to reach their audience on YouTube across screens so they can gain a better understanding on their highest-value customers.
Furthermore, Google will also be investing money in targeting audiences on mobile. Information from activity associated with users’ Google accounts may be used to influence the ads those users see on YouTube. Users will continue to have control over what ads they see on YouTube.
Find out more about mobile’s advertising growth potential here.
To understand how digital radio works, you must go back to basics and know how digital technology works.
Digital technology involves processing numbers electronically. It generates, stores and processes data in two states; positive, represented by the number 1, and negative, represented by the number 0. Essentially, digital technology expresses data as a string of 1’s and 0’s.
Once the audio is digitised, it can reach the listeners primarily through two means – by direct transmission using DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) technology or through the Internet. Here we are discussing DAB.
Analog technology, on the other hand, conveys data as electronic signals of varying frequencies and amplitudes. Waves of a given frequency carry these signals. These get to the listener through the air using AM (Amplitude Modulation) or FM (Frequency Modulation) technologies.
How does digital radio work?
Digital radio, therefore, broadcasts radio via a network of terrestrial transmitters. It has no frequencies, which means audio interference does not happen.
Digital radio works by combining MPEG and COFDM technology.
MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group – the body that sets up the standards) is an audio compression system. The system basically discards sounds which the listener cannot hear. These include very quiet sounds which might be masked by louder sounds. Thus, the digital technology does not have to broadcast as much digital information.
CODFM (Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) technology eliminates interference, which would disturb an FM reception. So, the whole country can use the same frequency.
Digital radio combines several service areas in a multiplex so that radio stations do not need their own frequency. The multiplex can carry audio, data and an in-built protection system against transmission errors.
Digital radio therefore sends program signals broken into fragments and digits. The transmitter sends each fragment many times so there is a lower change of the signal being lost. The receiver then pieces together the fragments who have had a successful journey to make an uninterrupted program signal.
The Q4 2016 RAJAR figures (released today, 9 February 2017) has revealed some exciting news; that radio is even more relevant as it was five years ago. Who said radio was dying?
RAJAR announced 48.7 million adults, or 90% of the adult UK population tune in to radio every week. This is up by approximately 445,000 adults compared to last year. It is the second highest number of total live audience recorded across the UK.
In addition, the share of all radio listening on a digital platform now stands at 45.2%, up by 3.5% compared with last year’s Q4 figures. This brings us even closer to the UK’s switchover from FM to digital radio, when the government announced three conditions to allow the switchover to take place; including that digital radio must reach 50% of all listening.
BBC Radio
RAJAR’s quarterly listening figures revealed BBC Radio’s share of 53.5% was up on the previous quarter’s 51.5% and its total of 35.2m listeners was up year-on-year.
Radio 2 remains the biggest stations in the UK with 15 million despite a drop of 414,000 listeners year on year.
Radio 3, 4 and 5 live have all increased their Reach.
However, Radio 1 lost almost a fifth of its listeners over the past five years, with its audience drifting down 3.2% quarter-on-quarter to 9.56 million. Although it must be accounted for that Radio 1 targets a younger audience, and RAJAR figures only record what adults (15 years or above) are listening to.
Furthermore, BBC Radio 1 controller, Ben Cooper, stressed that Radio 1’s “strategy of ‘Listen, Watch, Share’, the average age does not take into account any of the activity that reaches young audiences on new platforms. With over a billion minutes of Radio 1 videos watched on its YouTube channel, it has a million and a half subscribers. A third of those subscribers are 12 – 17-year-old females.”
Commercial Stations
It has not been the best quarter for commercial radio. Wireless Group’s new stations Virgin Radio and talkRADIO have lost listeners nationally, and Capital, Heart, Gold and Absolute Radio have experienced major drops in London listeners.
Kiss lost 7.7% of listeners compared to Q4 2015. However Kiss has now become the station with the biggest commercial reach in London.
Capital saw a 16.7% fall off and dropped from 2 million listeners to 1.7 million.
Magic remains the third top commercial station in London. However, Magic has also lost Reach, going from 1.804 million to 1.723 million.
Heart lost 321,000 listeners, dropping from 1.683 million listeners to 1.36 million. That’s a year-on-year decline of 34.5%.
The top 5 commercial stations in London are now as follows:
Kiss (1.860 million listeners)
Capital (1.730 million)
Magic (1.723m)
Heart (1.362 million)
LBC (1 million)
Independent Stations
The figures for independent stations revealed a stable quarter for the industry.
It’s not all fun and games for the radio stations that have made use of the internet and gotten themselves a decent online presence.
Recently, four large radio stations in Australia fell victim of hackers and turned into porn sites. These stations include 2GB and the website for Queensland radio station, 4BC.
On the 29th of January, 4BC confirmed their website was experiencing difficulties.
Listeners took to social media to share their experiences. One user tweeted that the website “goes straight to porn”. Another user stated the website had offered them the chance to win an iPhone.
The hackers’ victims use WordPress as their website’s host. Websites across the world use WordPress; so it
is without a doubt that there are security vulnerabilities that come with it. According to James Cridland, radio futurologist, the stations’ WordPress hosts “failed to keep their version of WordPress totally up to date”.
And hackers haven’t only been targeting Australian radio stations. Several radio stations across the US also fell victim of hackers, who broadcast rapper YG and Nipsey Hussle’s anti-Trump anthem ‘FDT – F**k Donald Trump‘. The track contains graphic language aimed at the current President of the United States.
One station that fell victim of unexpected song plays was Sunny 107.9. On the 30th of January, shortly after Trump’s inauguration, hackers played FDT continually for approximately 20 minutes.
Station President Frank Patterson said that the station was hacked at the transmitter. Furthermore, Patterson posted on Facebook “This is NOT our broadcast! We at WFBS do not take political views.”
According to Kathy Weisbach, founder and president of Kentucky’s Crescent Hill Radio 100.9 FM, most of the stations hacked were low-power community FM radio stations that use a Barix Extreamer device.
“Other stations that it happened to have contacted me, and we all used the same device, and none of us had set a password to the device.” Weisbach told Heatstreet. “My bad, as I had done other security measures at the tower and the studio but failed to password protect this device. You can bet it is now.”
Nothing on the internet is entirely safe from hackers. However, it is crucial to keep firmware updates in order to avoid intrusions the best you can.
Now that radio stations are stepping into the digital age, they also need to ensure their website is safe. It is vital for radio stations to check, double-check and triple-check their internet security. This will minimise hacks and intrusions like these happening…
The 6 Worst Radio Ad Practices You Should Avoid At All Costs
February 15, 2017
The thing that bothers me the most when it comes to radio commercial is that advertisers seem to want their listeners to know they are listening to a commercial. For some reason, advertisers seem to think that a commercial is only good if it sounds exactly like all the others.
We, as an audience, have learnt over the course of our life to block out advertisements. We tune out as soon as we hear something that remotely sounds like an advert.
The main problem is that most advertisers are afraid to do it wrong. Their adverts can’t be daring or different, so they just settle for invisible.
We have all heard thousands of radio ads. We all know what a typical radio ad sounds like. The key is to avoid sounding like a typical radio advert.
Below are a few (of many) cliches used in radio adverts that should be avoided at all costs.
1. Long addresses, websites or complex phone numbers
Your audience are often listening to the radio whilst doing something else; be it driving, working, cooking or cleaning. Throwing in your complex phone number or lengthy URL in a Call-To-Action will make your listener’s attention wander. Don’t waste any of the valuable time that your advert could use to actually connect with your listener.
If you do have a simple website URL (eg. www.brandname.com) then feel free to mention it. However, if your URL is mega complex and hard to remember (www.your-brand-name-and-where-itz-based.biz) then do not bother mentioning it.
We are in a digital age so all you have to do is tell your audience to Google you. From there, they can find everything they need to know about you; including your phone number and lengthy web address. Of course, that does mean you have to make sure your website is discoverable when people search for you, but that will be worth the effort.
If your advert entices and interests your audience enough they will find the small details on their own.
2. Too much dialogue
Cramming loads of words in a short amount of time will not work. The unnatural pace will distract and put the listener off. Plus, how are they going to remember all that information?
Find one selling point and stick to it. Take the most interesting point about your business and talk about that. If you interest your audience enough, they will then research you and find out everything else.
Repetition is important. It is said that an ad has to be heard seven times before it is acted upon. So, keeping that consistent message is key.
3. List of price point
Nothing screams ‘commercial’ more than an advert that says “On sale for £25.99 for a limited time only”.
Hammering price points into your listener’s head will not make your campaign work, trust me on this one. One good price point is enough. The more price points you include, the less effective they become.
You want to make a personal connection with your listener so do not waste precious message time by including these. Instead, build a story or tell a joke around a single price point.
4. Any cheesy sound effect
They are annoying and cringey. It’s 2017, leave the whooshes, boings and laser sounds where they belong, in the 1980’s. Enough said.
5. Scripted product reviews
We have all heard cheesy adverts like these and we all know they are fake;
Have you ever had a conversation with a friend that goes like that? I didn’t think so. And you never will. Adverts like these do not sound authentic and will instantly make your listener tune out.
If you do have a conversation in your ad, make sure it sounds like real people having a chat i.e. do not make them deliver information – people don’t do that.
6. Customer Service
No one is going to visit you solely based on the reason your customer service is up to scratch. Your customer service is what you prove when a customer visits your business, not on an advert. Talking about customer service has been done to death and becomes unbelievable and uninteresting.
Furthermore, everyone has “friendly and knowledgeable staff”. It is what employees are there for – it will not make you stand out from any competition. If your staff doesn’t treat your customers with “respect, friendliness and quick service” then you have bigger problems to think about before you start radio advertising.
Give your listeners a real reason to visit you. Be different, be exciting and don’t talk about how much people adore your business. Give your listeners a reason to want to try out your business for themselves so they can find out for themselves how great your service really is.
Your adverts need to be different and original and attention grabbing. Be daring, be bold and don’t be afraid to stand out. Remember, audio is an emotional medium – cater to the heart rather than the mind.
Are there any radio ad cliches that I’ve missed out? Leave a comment below.