Deadly Sins #2

Paul Borny is a former Creative Director for the Capital Radio Group and GCap Media in the UK. These days he can be found enjoying the warm weather in Brisbane – and working as a creative at 4BC/4BH.

He’s also available for voice work through Voices Today, hear Pauls demo here. He hates it when people plug themselves in articles 😉

You can read The deadly sins of radio advertising part 1 here.

Below is part 2….

Radio advertising can be brilliant.

It can move you, engage you, bring emotion to a brand and deliver direct response. Sometimes though, radio advertising is bad. Writers fall (or are pushed) into some big traps. Here’s my second of radio advertising’s deadliest sins.

Number 2: Shouting

YOU KNOW EXACTLY THE KIND OF COMMERCIALS I’M TALKING ABOUT HERE, DON’T YOU??

In my experience it’s usually the smaller advertisers who are quickest to fall into this trap. Driven by a perfectly understandable paranoia that the listener will miss their commercial, they insist on almost yelling it. They call it “hard sell”, but let’s be honest, it’s just shouting isn’t it?

For what it’s worth, here’s what a really clever bloke I used to work with in the UK (Mike Bersin, incase you’re interested) would tell advertisers like that:

“No matter how loud you shout it doesn’t come out of the speakers any louder”

He’d go on to point out that when somebody speaks softly it’s the equivalent of them whispering in your ear; whereas when they shout, they’re off in the distance somewhere.

If I walked into a shop to make a purchase and a salesperson screamed at me across the store, they wouldn’t see me for dust. I suspect radio listeners react similarly.

Besides, hard sell reads give voiceovers hypertension, and we should be nice to them…

You can book Paul right now for your promos or commercials through Voices Today

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