The radio commercial is often overlooked by businesses trying to sell their products or services, both locally and globally. The reason: a radio commercial is thought to be expensive and difficult to produce. This is simply not true. Dollar for dollar radio advertising has to be one of
greatest advertising bargains available today. In fact, advertising on radio can cost less than it does to place print ads in newspapers and magazines. And unlike print ads, which can take months to get to production stage, a radio commercial can be made in less than a day, and be on air immediately. In addition radio advertising gives you a stunning opportunity to reach thousands of potential customers. And allows you to let your creativity run wild. Consider following:
~ Your commercial can be set in any time period; past, future or present
~ You can set scene in Africa, Arctic, Russia or deserts of Saudi Arabia
~ You can drop your listeners on a desert island, mountains of Switzerland, in supermarket or take them on a wild and dangerous adventure.
Many radio commercials are made by radio stations, but if you want to keep your costs down, and have some fun into bargain, there’s no reason why you can’t write and even produce your own. All you need is about one hour of studio time, two or three out-of-work actors, a producer, and some pre-recorded sound effects.
But before you get carried away remember that like any other advertising medium radio advertising has three jobs to do: get listener’s attention, create a desire, and encourage him or her to act.
1. The informational commercial. There are times when it makes sense to use a factual commercial. For example, if there’s an event you want to promote. In this instance, commercial should deal with facts; what event is, where it is, and when. That doesn’t mean to say you have to create a list of facts and read it out on air. You can still weave a story or plot around facts to make commercial more interesting. But beware: there’s a tendency for radio commercial producers to browbeat their audience by hiring over-enthusiastic local celebrities or radio presenters to provide voice-overs. For general audiences, cajoling them gently works much better. Try adding another voice and a plot to make your commercial stand out from rest.
2. The dialogue commercial. A dialogue commercial revolves around a conversation between two or more people. Either (a) announcer and others, or (b) two or more characters without an announcer. The dialogue commercial can cause problems for inexperienced producer, especially if you decide to use company employees rather than professional actors. And, even if you do employ professional actors your commercial can still lack credibility. Let’s face it, how many times a day do you spend 60 seconds discussing a product or service with someone else? There are ways round this but generally speaking, it may be better to leave dialogue commercial to experts.
