Fire Sale or slow burner?
When people ask me ‘What length is the perfect radio ad?’, I often ask them to imagine that a colleague suddenly crashes through their office door screaming ‘FIRE!!!! Get out!!!!!'
If this message screamed into your face was a radio commercial, would it require an explanatory paragraph about the causes of the fire, and lessons to be learned? Would it sound more effective sung or accompanied by an ‘upbeat groove’? Would you respond better to the inferno warning if it were delivered by two people – acting out a hilarious scene, supposedly set in a pub?
No, and I suspect that even the worst kind of media charlatan might admit you could get this rather important message into a 10 sec slot. Twice.
The same sort of thing goes for radio ads you might want to run.
If you’ve got a limited stock of fish, or sofas, or trombones, or anything heavily discounted for a short period of time - and for a genuine reason (like a store closure, or bankruptcy) – you don’t need to be on the radio for long, saying more than you absolutely have to.
But, if you’re trying to raise general awareness of your products and services, and educate the public about your core brand values, and persuade them to make a once-in-a-decade purchase from you based on them overcoming their prejudices and previous purchasing habits – it’s not going to happen in a week of cheap radio advertising. Or a month. Or even three months.
Radio is, as they say, a Frequency Medium. If you want to make a radio ad succeed, it’s got to reach the right number of people the right number of times. (That’s once if your office is burning down, or several hundred times if you’re being asked to change your bank. Most businesses sit somewhere in between)
To make sure you’ve successfully married the right message with the right media schedule, and have given a brief that could even make that possible - talk to the people whose success literally stands or falls on whether or not you make the right choices. Get Carter Productions.
How many times must we tell you? It pays to use a specialist.
