NO WAY TO BEGIN A COMMERCIAL

THE ONE THING YOU SHOULD NEVER ALLOW TO LEAD A SPOT

Listen to the spots on your station(s). On your competitors'. More than anything else, what do you hear at the beginnings?

You just read it: a question.

For some reason, almost every other spot I hear -- and I'm including national network creative, on TV as well as radio -- seems to begin with a question. It's the laziest, least-creative way to start a selling message that I can think of. But it's worse than that: it shoots down any effectiveness that spot might have, right off the bat.

When a spot begins with something like "Are you in the market for a new washer?" you've left yourself wide open to immediate tune-out. Your client might argue that he's trying to sell washers and wants to appeal to people who are in the market for one. Fine. But what about the vast majority of listeners who don't need a new washer right now? Are you -- and your client -- content to nudge them out of the conversation in its first few seconds?

That's exactly what happens when you allow your sales and production people to write commercials that begin with questions. Using our washer example, it's safe to assume that 98% of listeners who hear that spot are NOT in the market for a washer at that moment. Either they can't afford one or, more likely, simply don't need one. What are we going to DO with those folks while we pitch the great washer deals at the local appliance store to the remaining 2%?

LOSE them, that's what.

Here's why: When you ask a question at the top of a spot, you immediately engage the listener's brain. It's a direct question: Are you in the market for a new washer? For almost all of them the first response is, "Nope. Not me." Well, NOW what? Are you content to let that 98% wander off (intellectually, anyway) for another 28 or 58 seconds? If you do that, you've lost them for that amount of time at least. Maybe a lot longer. 

You've also lost a valuable chance to sell them on your client's product or service, even if they don't need it right now. As a radio station manager, you need to be vigilant with every spot that airs. You need to instill in your staff, however small it may be, that VALUE is the key to what you offer. Value for that appliance dealer means engaging every possible listener for the entire length of the spot, whether they're in the market for his product or not.

This isn't hard to do but it does take a little more effort than simply launching a spot with a question and charging ahead. Instead of that, urge your staff to think this way: "What's newsworthy about this business? What's in it for me?" And here is where you sell dreams. Solutions. Answers. Convenience. A better mousetrap. Here's where you talk about how wonderful it is when you know your clothes are truly clean. When colors are bright and whites are white. When time previously spent in drudgery can now be spent on family, friends, activities, life. When an investment of hard-earned dollars returns something that will last for years.

Here's where you remind listeners that your client's appliance dealership is renowned for its service department, so that even their old washer can be repaired dependably and quickly.

Now, you've built value for your client's BRAND. You can sell washers in that spot, of course. But you must sell value, dependability, new product lines, SOMETHING to appeal to EVERY listener.

When you do this, you go a long way toward eliminating that age-old objection, "I tried radio and it didn't work". Of course it works. It works every time when it's done right. Leading a spot with a question isn't the way to make it work. Selling value -- for EVERY listener -- is.

WHY THE TRIBUNE-WGN ODYSSEY MATTERS IN ANY MARKET

BIG BROTHER-AND SISTER-ARE WATCHING!

We’ve all followed, sometimes open-mouthed, the very public downfall of now-former Tribune Company (and thus, WGN Radio) boss Randy Michaels and the company’s ex-chief innovation officer, Lee Abrams. While Chicago is one of the most major of major markets and Tribune a huge multimedia corporation, the supposed goings-on within Tribune Tower—and their recent ramifications—carry lessons that apply to all of us in radio management, regardless of market size.

The first is that, for better or worse, we no longer live in a private society. Anything we do that miffs or offends even one other person—whether or not anyone else on the planet is miffed or offended by it—is subject to massive scrutiny and remark. Thus, Abrams’ emailing to a wide audience within the company of an Onion video spoofing a “mass slut spill” on a California highway found a mixed response. Some thought it was funny and took it in the (admittedly convoluted) spirit in which Abrams sent it. Others were appalled and offended.

Seemingly, everyone who viewed or even heard of that video had a say about it.

On Facebook, Twitter, blogs, the works. Even a routine Internet search today for “Randy Michaels Tribune” returned nearly 200,000 hits. Now, that is public!

Regardless of whether you are in the Michaels-And-Abrams-Are-Creative-Geniuses department or on the Michaels-And-Abrams-Are-Thoughtless-Boobs side, every radio station manager should take three important lessons from the Tribune blowup:

1.  In the Age of Cyberspace, everyone knows a lot about everyone else’s business—especially when it’s high-profile. But not ONLY then. The same circumstances that torpedoed Michaels and Abrams could just as easily lead to

YOUR downfall. Especially if you forget that the days of the Good Old Boys Club are over, at least in business. It was never smart. Now, it’s dangerous

2.  There is no censorship in social media. Anyone can say anything about anyone

and there is little the targeted party can do about it. One of the vexing things about the Tribune situation is that while many of the actions and events that have been reported seem to have been well-documented, others have not. Where is the real truth and where the innuendo? We can’t tell. What would people say about you if they could? Well—they can.

3.  Radio station managers, male and female, always have the responsibility to behave in a way that reflects well on both themselves and the license for which they are responsible to the public and the government. Operating “in the public interest, convenience and necessity” carries with it a collection of responsibilities with which we’re all familiar. It also means being responsible as a person for how our actions are perceived by employees, ownership, advertisers and the public.

I cherish my privacy. As someone who has run radio stations and also been on the air in very high-visibility capacities in major markets for many years, I know first-hand how even one word, one facial expression, even something not said can set off howls of indignant protest. Today, it’s worth keeping in mind that the people who don’t like you can be cloaked in anonymity in cyberspace. You, however, in your twin capacities as manager of a very top-of-mind medium and guardian of a public trust—your stations’ licenses—cannot.

POLITICAL ADVERTISING BACKLASH HEATING UP

HE SAID/SHE SAID...ENOUGH!

Now that we’re in the home stretch of an acrimonious mid-term campaign season, an unusual thing is beginning to happen: some candidates are demanding that stations pull advertising from their opponents due to inaccuracies and/or unfairness.

Several station owners have told me that they have either received these demands or that they have been suggested. What can you do if the next phone call you receive is from an angry campaign that wants an opponent’s spots jerked from your logs?

You have several options here. At all times, of course, you need to respond tactfully and professionally, regardless of your political views. I don’t need to remind you that many local races are between individuals who are prominent in business and community affairs in your area. You don’t want to alienate them at this crucial point—but you do need to be firm.

First, and most important, remind the campaign representative that you do not legally have any say in what their opponent puts in his advertising. Any beef in that regard needs to go to the opponent, not you. Likewise, any demand to withdraw offending spots from the air.

Second,  also remind the caller that you are required to air political ads as they are provided, unless they contain profanity or other obviously objectionable content that could endanger your federal license to broadcast.

Third, you have a contract to air those spots and every legal right to do so. You are simply honoring a legal business agreement, as you would expect any other station or advertiser to do. And since you (presumably) collected cash up front for that business, you are entitled to keep it.

At all times, it’s vital to put the ball in the other person’s court. If a campaign or candidate is so incensed about the content of an opponent’s spots that they threaten legal action, steer them unequivocally to their opponent’s phone.

Still, I would immediately take a listen to the offending spots. Presumably your good due diligence as a radio station manager has already led you to routinely listen to every single word of every political spot on your station. If you haven’t already done that, it just became a top priority!