RADIO:

1
Chapter 9
RADIO CAN YOU SEE WHAT IM SAYING?
2
Why Advertise on Radio?

• A great way to take a small budget and do big
  things with it. Exciting things. Creative
  things. Funny things.
• Less production budget.
• Less cost of airtime.
• Great stand-alone medium and a great support for
  other media.
• Radio has been called the theater of the mind.

3
www.rab.com
4
Why Advertise on Radio?
5
Why Advertise on Radio?
6
Why Advertise on Radio?
7
Why Advertise on Radio?
8
Why Advertise on Radio?
9
Why Advertise on Radio?
10
Guidelines for Writing Effective Radio Spots

• Write for the ear, not the eye.
• Keep it simple.
• Use sound effects to paint scenery in your
  listeners minds.
• Identify your sound effects.
• Avoid annoying sound effects.

11
Guidelines for Writing Effective Radio Spots

• Use music as a sound effect.
• Consider using no sound effects.
• Describe the voice or voices that can best
  command the attention of your audience.
• Tailor your commercial to time, place, and a
  specific audience.
• Repeat the name of your client.

12
Guidelines for Writing Effective Radio Spots

• Avoid numbers.
• Be aware of time considerations.
• Make your copy easy to read.
• Present your commercial idea to the client on a
  CD if possible.

13
Approaches to Radio Commercials

• One Voice
• Make the voice interesting and relevant.
• Make the words exceptional.
• You might add music or sounds, or you might
  choose to let the voice speak for itself.

14
Approaches to Radio Commercials

• Dialog
• Two people talking.
• Be careful, some product categories dont lend
  themselves to a dialog format.
• How do you make the dialog sound real while still
  getting across a selling messages.

15
Approaches to Radio Commercials

• Multivoice
• A number of voices speak, not to one another but
  to the listener.
• e.g. AIDS awareness- use a variety of voices to
  make young people aware of the number of
  misconceptions about the disease and its victims.

16
Approaches to Radio Commercials

• Dramatization
• Uses the structure of a play, with a beginning, a
  conflict, and a resolution.
• You can use sound effects and several voices to
  act out of the story or use a narrator to tell
  the entire story.

17
Approaches to Radio Commercials

• Sound Device
• A sound of sounds are used repeatedly or
  intermittently to make the main point.
• Sometime music is used as the big idea for a
  commercial.

18
Approaches to Radio Commercials

• Vignette
• A series of short situations linked by a repeated
  device (e.g. announcer line, musical bridge, or
  sound effect).
• See example of the radio spot on page 184.

19
Approaches to Radio Commercials

• Interviews
• Someone is interviewing someone or groups of
  people, somewhere on a busy street.

20
Approaches to Radio Commercials

• Jingles
• When you have nothing to say, sing it.
• A catchy jingle can make a lasting impression in
  our minds.

21
Live Versus Produced

• Use a fact sheet when the radio station has a
  popular on-air personality.
• Use a script read live only if youre using
  straight copy with no sound effects, music, or
  multiple speaking parts.

22
Live Versus Produced

• Use a live-recorded commercial when you want to
  be able to update copy on a regular basis.
• Use a produced commercial when your script calls
  for multiple speaking parts, sound effects,
  music, or any combination of these and when you
  want assurance that the quality of the spot will
  never waver.

23
Radio Script Format

• Brand Name, Title, Timing
• Fact Sheet / Live announcer copy / to be produced
• Use double space
• Some abbreviation SFX, ANNCR
• FADE UNDER
• MUSIC OUT