For decades, our industry’s stopset discussion has often defaulted to focusing on the quality, not quantity of radio spots. Some broadcasters feel that ad quality is the real issue. Some allow that stopset length is a problem, but not one we can do anything about. The upshot is that neither quantity nor quality has ever gotten fixed.
I still think stopset length is the first thing that radio needs to address. I believe that we’re seeing shorter stopsets make a difference right now in some markets. I believe that the “ads are a fair trade” agreement between broadcasters and the audience was made a generation before the oldest of us, and has not been renewed by today’s potential audience — especially once broadcasters began pushing the boundaries well beyond the length of a single song.
I’ve had a few recent realizations about radio advertising. The bad ads and the bottom-feeding clients get all the attention. They are, admittedly, often my focus. But often radio advertising isn’t bad, it’s just savorless. Recently, Cumulus released a study in conjunction with Signal Hill Insights on podcast advertising. The finding that “listeners prefer funny and entertaining ads but say they currently hear more ads that communicate dry features/benefits” certainly describes my experiences with broadcast radio as well.
I recently listened to a successful major-market AC station that ran two stopsets — one six minutes, one slightly over seven. Beyond the length, there was nothing particularly angering about the break or any of the spots it contained. There were no dire PSAs. Each stopset had only one accident-attorney ad, each of them a :10-:15 second ad that ended the break. Most of the ads sounded agency-produced. The ad breaks seemed to be the same ones that were running locally, judging from the local sponsors involved. I only heard one moment that could have possibly been a clunky transition between over-the-air and the radio-station stream. In other words, this was a station mostly observing best practices.
If I were to rate the commercials I heard on a 1-5 scale, five being best, I heard mostly 2s and 3s, very few ones and nothing over a three. Most fit the Signal Hill description of “dry features and benefits.” Some ads featured narration that was slightly attitudinal in its phrasing, usually more quirky than funny. I didn’t hear any ad with a jingle, other than the now ubiquitous tag for Optima Tax Relief. I didn’t hear any ad that made me smile. I didn’t hear any ad that made me want to learn more about a sponsor.
I listened to another AC station’s six-minute break. This stopset had a few better ads. There was a Live Nation concert spot that I would have given a four, if only because of the energy level and the hit songs it included. There was an ad for Staples’s “Print Big” sale that was funny, attention-getting, and had a music bed that recalled “Shape of You.” That was a four, too, at least for the first time. (Staples ads are among those that I’ve known to repeat in the same stopset, but they didn’t here.)
Most of the music I heard was low-key, unobtrusive. In fact, a lot of it was of a piece with the production music heard in 2020 during the early months of COVID — sober, if not quite sorrowful. We’re fortunate not to be living in those exact times now, and I wondered why so many advertisers were still going for that overly earnest sound. I’d think they want to smile, too. After all, we’re all in this together.
And here’s why I think radio advertising could be drastically improved. For those of us listening on the stream, the user experience is really in the hands of a small number of sponsors. The bad local car spot voiced by the client and his family isn’t the issue; those aren’t the ones that most people are hearing. Much of what we’re hearing is coming from just a few people — Progressive, State Farm, Indeed.com, Optima, Granger, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Pfizer – although our experience is also impacted by the faulty technology that feeds us those ads more than once in a stopset.
The radio industry would do well to focus on our best sponsors, especially streaming’s biggest advertisers, on both the quality and quantity of their spots. Each new “your mother for Progressive” ad makes me laugh. It makes me smile again when I turn it up for whoever’s in the car with me. But those ads, or the well-liked “Jake from State Farm answers your ‘what ifs’” ads, don’t feel freshened enough on a regular basis for a serious radio listener. And our goal is to make every listener a serious radio listener again.
Radio’s rivals, even when they have the wherewithal to produce better ads, haven’t really tried to compete on entertaining commercials. It’s similar to how most new media entities aren’t trying to replicate radio’s entertainment package overall. Some readers will observe that users of music streaming services are used to relatively dry ads, often segued straight from and into music. But those ads, sometimes designed to be low-key, are usually in the context of much shorter stopsets. We have the brainpower to do better. Radio ads want to be noticed. Just not for the wrong reasons.
” I believe that the “ads are a fair trade” agreement between broadcasters and the audience was made a generation before the oldest of us, and has not been renewed by today’s potential audience”
It’s not just radio but one thing we’ve done as an industry over many years is badmouth ads while pushing more ads on the listener. While it’s probable that listeners would have a bad impression of ads, we’ve fed it with “commercial-free hours,” “the commercials are over,” etc.
I don’t hear many stations that sell the agreement between the station and listener. It’s probably harder to do with mainstream formats where you can get your Harry Styles any number of places rather than a niche format, but I’d be curious to see it done in a local/compelling way.
This is an important article, one that all radio commercial producers, traffic managers, and advertising agencies should pay heed to. On the CREATIVE side of radio commercials, there are three big things that are often improperly done: The use of humor in a spot, the lack of a variety of commercials for a single advertiser, and the inability for sponsors and agencies to realize that simple running the audio of your TV commercial isn’t good enough for radio or streaming.
Use of humor: The airwaves are plagued with commercials that are funny THE FIRST OR SECOND TIME YOU HEAR THEM. Radio commercials air with much more frequency than TV commercials. A funny TV spot may be seen 2x on the same station between 8 and 11pm. That same “humor based spot” may be heard up to 12x between 6a and 6p on the radio. Every time a “funny” spot is played, it becomes less funny, more predictable, and less engaging to the long-term listener. Solution: Run humor based commercials for shorter flights, which leads to point two, Variety of Commercials…having numerous spots rotating for the same product/advertiser, at the same time. This will also clear up a major problem radio has: a local ad buy will be placed for an advertiser, but at the same time, the same advertiser will have the same commercial rotating on a national or network buy. And when the local traffic manager plugs in the national rotator as a scheduled spot or to fill out a stopset (of which the advertiser is often unknown and can quickly change), it results in the same commercial airing twice in the same stopset, sometimes even back to back. You’ve heard it on your local stations, and you’ve heard it on streaming in nearly every market. To the listener, this is horrible customer service, and radio has yet to figure out how to fix it.
And finally, to any ad agency placing a radio buy, please express to your clients that a GREAT TV commercial often becomes a MEDIOCRE radio commercial. I heard an insurance commercial the other day that started with “This person just lost their home in flood…”. immediately I thought “What or which person…I don’t see anyone…no one else is here?” The spot contined to make references to the graphics and pictures that you would have seen on TV, but truly did not work for an audio only spot. So, Ad agencies…the next time your client says “Just run the audio of our TV spot for radio,” really make sure that it makes sense. And if it doesn’t, do your best to make your client understand why it is so. Radio is not TV. TV can be radio with pictures. But when it comes to commericals, each deserves their own separate creative productions.
As the creative agency behind the Staples radio spot to which you refer, we thank you Sean. As creative radio pros, we agree with your insights.
There was a time we’d be hired to do what we do best: create engaging radio that rewards the listener for his/her time. The goodwill this provides is a long-term-relationship play. Listeners appreciated those ads, they were talked about at the dinner table, they looked forward to hearing more of them.
It seems though, that since the audio space has exploded with more and more listening platforms, demand for those ad dollars has been stretched and so we’re often told by newer clients, “sell stuff!”
To Staples’ credit – they insist we both sell and entertain.
Will it ever go back to the days of Dick Orkin and Bert Berdis-type radio advertising? I hope so.
But what I look forward to more is that the strategic thought we gave radio ads 20 years ago (‘these are important, how do we make them great?’) is fortified by the opportunities provided by emerging audio technologies to make those entertaining spots more measurably effective: dynamic, synthetic voice, heck – even interactive. Very few really good, really creative campaigns are being done with those tools yet. I’ve no idea why.
And so for me…what we really need to do as a community in the audio/radio space is to treat each assignment as if it’s the most important task we have on our plate that week. Because it is.
The proof is in those ads you rated as “2’s and 3’s.”
Dan Price/Partner
Oink Ink Radio/Price Brothers
Every so often, the subject of how to improve production (spots) comes up. We rehash the same solutions and some are inspired to improve the necessary evil. Unless the industry is willing to dedicate more resources as in hiring additional production people including skilled copywriters, it won’t be a permanent solution. And where is the training ground these days for a copywriter? How many stations is the production director saddled with? Three? Four? Five? Six? More? One person cannot handle it! The last time I was involved as Production Director was 1990 or so and we had a very talented crew. We prided ourselves on our commercials but it was not sustainable even then. If the hedge funds who own everything realize the spot problem needs attention (ha!) , they will let loose with the money. That probably won’t happen and usual, it will be left to the folks in the trenches to save these huge hedge funds as a matter of professional pride.
One of our stations is a MeTVfm affiliate. Often, they go into their breaks with verbage such as “We’ll be right back after we hear from some people and businesses who support us so we can bring you music that can’t be heard anywhere else”.
It’s effective and makes our advertisers partners….not an annoyance that’s interrupting the flow.