What's It Going To Take...?

[slowhand]

As an alternative to the continuing monologue - you might consider writing a book or an article for the Broadcaster Mag

Yeah, we're too busy around here telling the latest Knock-Knock joke we just heard on Radio Disney.

[78rpm]

try this cable station and streaming www.civu.net
especially wed night 5-8pm pst

[pave]

During the discussion, I have avoided making any gender-specific remarks as they wouldn't be applicable to the application of any of the material mentioned in this thread.

However, I am of the opinion that women who are on-the-air do bear a double burden -- those of being suppressed as personalities because of management assumptions about women on-the-air... and the binds in which the women find themselves through the use of traditional language patterns and techniques that have been criticized here. Their potentials as communicators are being limited on both fronts.

My female colleagues lament bitterly about this double jeopardy and rightfully so. They realise they are put into positions where they can hear the frothing and fizzing of their own brains as they parrot whatever banalities they are supposed to utter.

This is unfortunate as the audience is denied the value of what some of these women might have to say and the ladies are denied the opportunity to expand their knowledge and skills.

I can only imagine the Sisterhood as not being amused.

[pave]

While taking a quick break from the thrill that can only be: Grocery Shopping, I was perusing the magazine rack - flipping through anything that caught my interest and that wasn't placed on the top row and wrapped in plastic.

As I was also keeping a sharp lookout for any grocery clerk who might pull serious rank and inform me that "This is no library, dude!", I still couldn't help notice the incredible Creative in the ads - page after page after page of commercial content vying for my attention and toying with my emotions.

During the drive back home, I had the radio on just long enough to hear another sweep of tunes that I've heard absolutely too many times, an on-air girl go through the motions of telling me what a great station this was and what I had to do to have a chance at maybe winning some prize that wasn't worth the getting out of bed to go collect.

And then.... there were the commercials. Six, maybe more. Felt like more.

Every one of these little marketing gems had the same approach and appeal as a classified for used wheelbarrows like those appearing now in Kijiji or Craigslist... without those pesky, niggly, yet still revealing spelling mistakes.

All the spots in this set were of the same approach: presenting me with more information than I needed; offering no compelling reasons or motivation to continue listening and informing me of what I had to do and when I had to do it. Which, as surprises no one, was: buy the product... right now!

At the time, I was paying close attention to these spots - their approach, their structure, the syntax and the rest. That was just a couple hours ago and yet, as I type this in, I am having difficulty in remembering what four of them were. And I'm trying to remember.

I'm wondering if a casual listener would fare any better.

[pave]

Meanwhile, a read-through of the (above) post might suggest that I am about to jump to the swollen contusion that, for a spot to be worthwhile, it would also have to be memorable. However, while that might be a pleasant enhancement to my listening experience and a greater inducement to motivating a listener, I am happy to report that memory is not an absolutely required element for a commercial to be effective. And a good thing, too, I reckon. I mean, how many really are memorable?

All this leads me to another of Radio's Dirty, Little Lies. That of: The Sales departments suggesting to their clients that a spot will be memorable. Granted, there are fewer sales reps telling this lie as there are fewer attempts at making commercials that might be memorable, and it is extremely difficult to deliver the fib person-to-person.... with a straight face.

But, that's okay as, fortunately, the medium (Radio) comes with a special feature -- one that is applicable to all electronic media.

An interesting test that comes with sobering and disconcerting responses is as follows: Were we to ask any one what were the last three radio commercials they heard where they went right out and immediately purchased the product or service, most respondents would have difficulty getting past just one.

Now, they may have purchased the product or service, but they would still demonstrate great difficulty in connecting the two experiences - hearing a spot; buying the goodies.

There is a bit of social reality here, also, that folks are more unwilling to report being influenced by a broadcast commercial and yet will announce to anybody standing around how a newspaper ad or flyer was just the impetus they needed to go part with some cash.

And yet, Radio has always had the capacity to influence an audience. Yes, even with some of the drek and flotsam that masquerades as Radio Creative getting pumped out regularly.

Mr. Elmer Fudd, the well-known and highly-compensated Radio Consultant To The Biggies, sez it best: "There's something vewwy scwewwy going on here."

[pave]

So as to clarify Mr. Fudd's (above) contention.....

There are neurological aspects to all this and one of them has to do with with the brain access of Radio... and every other electronic media.

An electronic medium is processed primarily through the sub-dominant hemisphere. This hemisphere is a processor of language, emotions and is pattern-seeking and enjoys "The Simpsons", but struggles with Dennis Miller's vague, topical references.

It is, however, not where rational, logical thoughts are considered, nor where facts and content are retained nor where arithmetic is figured out.

Hence, the difficulty in recalling the content of Radio commercials.

Were it not for the following, Radio and all other electronic media would have already gone the way of the Carrier Pigeon, the Dodo Bird and the Wooly Mammoth. And this, by the way, is information known by every high-end Ad Agency in The Big City:

Behaviour is Not Contingent on Recall!

Sophisticated advertisers are using electronic media to influence their target audiences. Their goals - at least, the goals of the better ones - are to develop incredibly powerful, emotional responses in that audience from the spots and to connect those emotions to their product or service. Generating recall in a group of consumers is not even on the agenda!

Should Radio ever clue in... another set of opportunities may be presenting.

[pave]

As a quick follow-up to the last few posts, allow me to offer some broad but still extremely useful generalisations I like to affectionately call:

Pave's Righteous Rules of Radio Commercial Presentation

1. Access and maintain audience attention.
2.(a). Generate an emotional response in the audience as soon as possible.
2.(b). Continue this process right up to the 25-second mark if that is what it takes.
3. Insert client's product or service after accomplishing #'s 1 and 2.

Note: Number 3 is only necessary if the client is absolutely insistent. Otherwise a name-drop will suffice. Trying to pull this last part off is strictly optional and the author does recommend wearing or carrying protection.

If, however, the client insists on the inclusion of 4 products, 3 locations and a website-mention plus a "call to action", then personal preservation allows for the BOHICA protocol... with no fouls called or penalties served.

[pave]

Although busboards and the like seem benign by comparison, I have little choice - if I am going to continue listening to a particular station - but to tolerate the outfit's internally-produced and aired-as-often-as-possible promos. (Extremely well-produced, I might add. Production-people impress the hell out of me.)

Meanwhile, having to listen to this innocuous white noise might be comparable to being forced to witness a circle-jerk - with the winner running about, waving an oversized foam finger and yelling "I'm Number One!"

This self-congratulatory, self-indulgent, self-gratifying, mastubatory behaviour is rampant in the Radio business. In fact, it's ubiquitous, obsessive and compulsive. I mean: Everybody's doin' it. (Oh sure, it's also fun! It must be.)

Every station, by the twisting of many Laws of Physics and Probability, somehow manages to be "The Best" at this, the "Greatest' at that and provides the "Most" of the other thing -- all at the same time! Spectacular.

One wonders if management has determined the distinctions that are inclusive in the journey that starts at Advertising, runs directly through Bull***t and arrives at their destination: Lying.

I speculate that audiences have been recoiling - at some level - for years... in disgust and indignation and internally responding with the inaudible question of: "What do these people take me for?"

If contempt were requests, the phone lines would've been burned down years ago.

[yathink]

Methinks you give the audience too much credit.

[pave]

yathink comments:

Methinks you give the audience too much credit.

While I'm not pickin' on you, specifically, yathink, (Hell, I appreciate the participation.) - the comment still reminds me: Is this not a single representation of a more pervasive attitude in Radio? That being: the audience is, essentially, unaware, unsophisticated and practically - stupid.

Now, I never wrote that an audience would be consciously aware of or articulate these positions. What I am suggesting is that they respond as-if...... by their lack of listening and participation.

I have come up against this kind of arrogance my entire career. I even had one P.D. who referred to the audience as: "The Great Unwashed!" - a disastrous assumption to make when designing programming and commercial Creative. And it showed. The more they dumbed the station down, the more the audience stayed away in herds, flocks and droves.

My own attitude - drilled into me by a fine, senior broadcaster - has always been one in which I presuppose at least half the audience is smarter than me, generally, and every member of an audience is smarter than me in some areas. This has been a healthy attitude as it reminds me to have some respect for these wholly unidentified people.

So, here's a couple of considerations for anyone who is on-the-air or writing for an audience: For more people to be attracted to the station, would the target-audience have to be dumber.... or smarter? And the other is specifically for the Talent: For more people to be attracted to my station, would I have to be dumber... or smarter?

Any answer, I submit, either affirmative or to the negative... still unearths serious challenges.

[CKNF]

What was this thread about again? 8 pages...time to shut her down.

[pave]

As CKNF bleats:

What was this thread about again? 8 pages...time to shut her down.

Am I to take that as a rhetorical question, a request for information or just a failed attempt at putting two, cogent sentences together - back-to-back at the same time and in the same space....?

Anyone who accepted that any participation was valuable participation has been mislead. As was the person who suggested it.

Wait a sec.... that might have been me!

As to the smarter/dumber dilemma: I'll take the (above) comment as evidence and... rest this portion of my case.

[freqfreak2]

Oh - silly me.

I thought "What's It Going To Take...?" was a contest, to answer the question "What's it going to take to end this thread?"

Never mind.

[yathink]

Am I to take that as a rhetorical question, a request for information or just a failed attempt at putting two, cogent sentences together - back-to-back at the same time and in the same space....?

Is that in itself rhetorical? Or convoluted? Or rhetorical again?

[Jack Bennest]

I thought "What's It Going To Take...?" was a contest, to answer the question "What's it going to take to end this thread?"