Listen To This

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.”

― Ralph G. Nichols

As a writer, especially a writer of advertising, one of the most powerful tools you have to help you improve the quality and effectiveness of the ads you write; is the ability to listen.  That may seem a little counter-intuitive since what you’re trying to do is improve as writer.  But listening can help you in several ways.

The first is way it can help is to give you an idea how real people talk…not the phony conversation you hear in 90 percent of all “conversation style” ads – but real conversation.  This is why one of my biggest pieces of advice to any writer who wants to improve, is to go out into the world – and just listen.  You can do it so easily.  When you’re shopping, going out with friends – in fact anytime you are out in public.  Shut up – and listen to people talk.  But don’t just listen.  Listen carefully and with your full attention.  Try to pick up cues about the way people talk.  I’m willing to bet you’ll notice people speak in incomplete sentences, run-on sentences and often incomplete thoughts.

The 2^nd thing you can pick from just listening, are some golden idea generators.  Truthfully, people say the darndest things – some of them truly brilliant.  Interesting and unusual turns of phrase, regional expressions and just plain unique thoughts that would be absolutely brilliant included in an ad.  They ring true with the listener because they are true – and they are most often not ad-speak so they stand out. 

But don’t trust your memory to record all these little gems of truth --- take a little pad of paper with you, or use one of the many apps that help you save notes on your cell.  I like to think I have a really good memory, but I know there are numerable times when I’ve been somewhere and heard a real gem of conversation – and thought “I’ve got to remember that one”…but I didn’t.  Who knows what great chances I lost to write ads that resonate and persuade – simply because I didn’t have a way to save those ideas for future use. 

  When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”

― Ernest Hemingway

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ky_olsen/3133347219/">ky_olsen</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">cc</a>

Just Make Me Laugh Ad Boy

I used to think that radio ads with comedy -- were great ads.

I felt that way before I went to college to study Radio, and when I left I was absolutely sure of it.  It seems to me those were the ads we studied, and the ones that when written by us, always garnered the most praise from our instructors.  Now I’m not saying that’s what they taught me – I expect that I heard what I wanted to hear – and I wanted to hear that ads with outrageous comedy were the way to go. 

So when I got my first writing job, my goal was to write stupendous comedy ads.  Sure I had to do my best to write “great” ads for a lot of “sale” copy ads – and straight forward event ads, but every now and then I was able to write some ads that I was certain were comedy gold!  And that’s where my pride of accomplishment lay.  I saved every one of them that made it air – convinced that one day they would be my key to success, fame and fortune.

Of course these days I would have to admit that the ads of my first few years, were not going to deliver me to any promised land.  For the most part they were laced with naivete and poor structure.  To my defence, I was really raw.  And I did not know any better.  Besides I seemed to get compliments when my ads were funny.

However like my ability to write ads has improved over the years, my aptitude to discern what constitutes a good, effective ad has also sharpened.  And these days I play a lot less with comedy in my ads.  You see I’ve discovered what people like Roy Williams said about comedy is true – it really is nytro glycerin.

It can easily blow up in your face if it’s not handled with extreme care. 

Entertaining (comic) ads can work, if there’s a direct connection between entertainment and the one thought you’re trying to plant in the minds of shoppers. In far too many ads the entertainment is not relevant to the advertising message.

Chuck McKay (http://fishingforcustomers.com/)

Not only is that point true – but everyone has a different sense of humour, and what you find funny, may not be funny to someone else.  But the main reason that humour fails to work most often in radio ads is simple – as stated by Chuck McKay -- the comedy has little or nothing to do with the main point of the ad.  It’s humour for humour’s sake. 

A lot of times it seems that the joke is written first, and then the idea the marketer wants to get across is slipped into the middle of the joke/scenario because they had to do it.  And when the ad is done, you’ve found the ad very funny, but for some reason you can’t remember who it was for – or what point they were trying to make. It’s actually interesting to hear people talk about the ads they really love and discover just how often people can not remember the name of the client who paid for the ad!

I’ve gotta tell you, if it was my money on the line – I’d want to be extra sure they remembered who picked up the tab and why I bought the ads in the first place – a whole lot more than they remembered the joke! 

So my basic advice to you as a young writer or an inexperienced radio advertiser would be to stay as far away from comedy in your ads as possible.  I’d urge you to spend a greater amount of your time trying to find that thing that you do that solves a problem everyone listening to your ads has. 

They (the listeners) may love your comedy ad – but if they don’t buy your product and help to keep the doors to your business open, then really what was the point.  Unless of course you just wanted to add a little comedy to the lives of those around you, and you don’t care if anyone knows you were the one who paid for it.  

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bispham2/354689364/">JohnBurke</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">cc</a>