Giving Radio Creativity a Better Airing

Is the creative potential of radio being fully exploited in regional radio? Well, it is by some. And it's not by others. But the good news for all of us is that more and more clients and agencies are not only using radio but using it imaginatively and effectively.

Yet the Style A radio ad, a 30s piece of library music with 35 seconds of wink-in-the-voice copy struggling for survival, can still often be the frontier beyond which some advertisers never feel comfortable exploring.

And, like an ageing heavyweight boxer, the punchy aggressive read, radio's answer to TV's MAN IN THE JACKET HARANGUING US FROM HIS WAREHOUSE, is still a contender.

Incoherent with detail, unlovely and unloved, it's there because it works, of course. But for every product? Is that the best we can do?

Which brings me to the point. If those kinds of commercial work, what more might we do? What do we actually think radio is for?

Writing Radio Is Very Difficult

But not if you can do it. As far as I can tell, writing truly world-class radio commercials is a talent given to few people: about the same number as are capable of writing truly brilliant world-class press, TV or any other kind of advertising. Writing EFFECTIVE commercials, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be any more difficult (or easier, for that matter) for radio than any other medium. Please don't be put off radio because somebody tells you it's hard to do it well.

Success Starts With The Brief

Less is more. Like one of those giant forty-eight-sheet thingies, radio has a limited amount of time to make an impact. Most posters have a very small amount of factual copy, but convey an enormous wealth of information through a powerful illustration.

Radio can do just as powerful a job if the brief is simple, clear-cut and direct enough. As soon as we begin merely to cut and paste copy to get it to fit a slot, we're about to spend a lot of the client's money saying they're no different from their competitors.