Making the Listeners Work

Don’t make the listener work

For over one year, radio head honchos have spent hundreds of thousands of rupees in research, which has resulted in one universally accepted notion: the great source of audience tuneout has always been commercials. But while radio stations allow research to dictate everything from budget cuts to playlists, they aren’t about to let research take away their bread and butter. So, the conclusion everyone has always reached with regard to those results was: the problem isn’t the commercial itself, it’s the fact that the commercials aren’t any good. Better, funnier, more creative commercials would keep the audience listening. And the same applies to station or show promos that are run from the same ad break or stopset. The funny thing is, they’re sort of on the right track. Sort of. But the real issue isn’t creativity; it’s the fact that we create spots/promos that make the audience work too hard.

Think about it. Why do YOU listen to the radio? Unless it’s to get your news/weather/sports or be just informed on a current Bollywood story, most listeners are there because they want to be entertained. Radio is supposed to be an escape. People want to laugh, to think, to shout back at the talk show host or to sing along with a favourite tune. Instead, if you create programming that makes listening a work, the audience vanishes. That’s why radio stopsets tend to set listeners scurrying; they know they’re about to get assaulted. So they shut down. They tune out. And we, as an industry, loose our effectiveness.

That’s why our job is not to just be creative – as I said, the radio executives sort of have it right – but being creative is only part of the job. The other, more important, aspect is that we have to make things simple.

A commercial or promo doesn’t have to funny or engaging to be effectove. A boring commercial can work just as well as a Dick Orkin classic. The standing example is right here in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where a local jewellery retail outlet with an average radio budget, has been using a monotone, almost laughable, delivery to achieve his radio success for over five years. His droning ,focused commercials would make any PD scream. Yet, he has created name recognition for his company by delivering a single message in a consistent manner. People listen because he doesn’t make them work too hard to do so. That’s why, much to our chagrin, even “bad” commercials sometimes work, if the message is simple enough. There’s an important lesson to be learned from that.

When you write a piece of non-music element -- promos or radio ads that are complex, complicated or packed with too much information -- the listener tunes out. After all, they’re assulted with information everywhere else in their lives; now the radio promo/ad is also demanding them to concentrate. A radio promo/ad with too many pieces to it is doomed from the start. Again, listeners aren’t interested in working; they want to be entertained. They want escape.

So start thinking ONE. One idea to convey. One problem to solve. One way to contact the client, like an address, a phone number or a website. Instead of a creative classified ad that lists as much information as possible, guide the client to be a little more selective. Remember, the people you are trying to influence have not had the luxury of hearing the spot, reading the spot, or listening to it, like the client does, over and over and over. That means the listener really has no idea of what you are tying to tell them. To be effectve the spot has to be able to grab attention, no matter where it ends up being heard.

So keep the message simple. Then, get as creative or basic as you want. By simplifying what the audience has to take away from your ad, you make sure it never becomes work for the listener. And that the listener then says “thank you” by paying attention, and possibly by reacting to the product or service. As the saying goes, you can make just as much of an impact with a whisper as you can with a scream. So think ONE – because the less you make your audience work, the more you’ll find they respond.

Send your comments to Mohit S Balani