Book review: Tony Hertz - The 7 secrets of creative radio advertising

Around five years ago, I met Tony Hertz, who was speaking at Radiodays in Scandinavia. Hertz is certainly a man with a name for radio, and he has a voice for radio too - a rich, sonorous voice that sounds similar to Baz Luhrmann. You could listen to him for hours, even if he was reading the ingredients for flavoured peanuts. Mmm, maltodextrin.

Hertz is a radio advertising specialist - working for some of the largest agencies across a career that spans forty years and three continents. He was speaking about a subject I know a thing or two about: writing radio commercials.

Between 1989 and 1999, I wrote radio commercials for the Metro Radio Group and Emap Radio in Yorkshire. We had inspiring management: Mike Bersin, Martyn Healy , Paul Renhard and Mark Gregory were some of the brightest and best people I've worked with. I've won advertising awards both in the UK and overseas for my creative work - some the same as Hertz has won, I note with pride. I've worked on national brands like AA Roadwatch and JJB Sports, and also wrote a hideous ad for a relatively small Yorkshire port town which included the immortal line "Why go to London for your Christmas shopping this year - when Goole is just around the corner?". (Shudder)

This book is the book I wish I had at the start of my career.

Unashamedly passionate about the medium of radio advertising, many of this book's "seven secrets" will be a useful refresher to creatives, but some are a new look at the medium. I liked the idea of visual radio advertising - doing storyboards for radio ads, just as you do for TV. For ad agency creatives and their clients, this appears to be an excellent way of doing things - it makes radio feel as 'important' as television when presenting the radio ads, and means the creative process for both is seen as similar, so creatives don't stray outside their comfort zone. As an idea, I rather like it.

Each section of the book contains ample examples of great radio ads - facilitated by scripts and by an accompanying webpage with audio. Interestingly, the book is wholly printed in full colour, with abundant illustrations that really aid comprehension of the various concepts. Considerable care has been taken: and it shows.

Some parts of this book show the disconnect between an advertising agency and a busy 'creative production' department at a commercial radio station. As one example, Hertz doesn't hire "voiceovers", because they don't sound real: instead he prefers to direct actors. I think that's a worthy aspiration, but one that's unrealistic for a department making sometimes over twenty-five radio commercials a week. (I did direct some actors - the late Jeremy Brett for example, who was excellent and charming the first time he recorded some commercials for me, but grumpy and, to be honest, rather pissed the second time, which made the whole experience rather embarrassing when he couldn't pronounce the client's name.) That said, the point - to avoid people in character who sound like voiceovers - is dead right.

Hertz's approach comes out of every page of this book: to bring care (and, yes, even love) to the skill and craft of writing good radio advertising. For someone new to the business, this book would be the best start they could have; for someone who's been doing it a while, this might help them see things differently and re-arm their creative mind. You can bring these skills into a busy production office, too, with skill and care. Just ask some of the people I used to work for.

This book could raise the standard of radio commercials on-air by itself: and, frankly, I'd like to send this book to the folks who write the ads on the radio stations I listen to. The difference on the air would be marked: and, dare I say it, result in higher audience figures too.

The 7 secrets of creative radio advertising is released on 18 July, and costs £12.99.

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