Why do these kinds of spots continue?

As a production guy, I want the client to have the best possible spot. Usually that means telling the client using the spot he/she wrote is not a good idea. I didn't write this but you can bask in the awfulness for yourself. Where's the sales weasel's backbone? This spot won't pull clients because it's not real...and it sucks. Hard. No 2 people have ever had this conversation and they never will.
Now the client will say "We tried Radio, it doesn't work." Sales weasel then blames the production guy even though he didn't write it and it was recorded over his objections.
Am I wrong here?

Female voice: Honey I had another scare with the car today. I was at the stop light on Glassford Hill and the car stalled…the kids and I were scared someone was going to hit us.
Male voice: Sorry hon, I’ll take a look at it this weekend.
FV: You know dear the car has lots of miles on it and we do have our tax refund coming back.
MV: Uh huh.
FV: I saw Tim’s Used Vehicles on Highway ** has a limited time offer about doubling your tax refund… we’ll have to ask about the details for that special.
MV: That sounds like a great way to put extra money on the down payment.
FV: And Tim’s Used Vehicles in (your town) has expanded their inventory and I’ve heard their guaranteed credit approval makes the buying easy and hassle free.
MV: That sure would be a great car buying experience.
FV: So I’m thinking we should head over to Tim’s Used Vehicles to look at all of their great options incljuding their first time buyer program.
MV: Yes dear that’s a great idea.
FV: Great I’ll make the arrangements .
Anncr: Tim’s Used Vehicles right on Highway ** doing business in the (area) for over 3 decades visit Tim’s in (your town) your Hometown Dealer today.

You're correct. It's awful. But no more awful than many spots you hear in small and medium markets.
What will make it even worse is the "actors" that will perform the script, usually jocks or someone in the radio station.

You would not hear this in a large market, someone would intervene with the "truth" to the client.

It's great that you care. Keep caring!

OH, Please... can I be the devils advocate here?

Well, can I at least pretend?

What is so awful about the copy? What rules of common sense have been broken? What has been left out that needed to be in there? A lot of station owners put their kids through college and built up their retirement running copy like that.

Do their kids need to return their degrees? Should the retirement funds be turned over to charity?

Come to think of it, some car sales folks made a living running copy like that. Some one has failed. If someone had told them that was bad copy, they would not have built their business using unholy methods.

Half way through the copy, the female becomes an expert on Tim's used vehicles and their programs and policies?

It's not credible. The opening scenario is ok, but midway through the spot, a third voice of authority should come in with the details.

Again, the reason these kind of "reality" spots sound bad, is the people performing them. Jocks and office employees at small market stations don't usually sound very convincing.

A used car lot needs a really good, polished commercial to get past the preconceived notion people have of used car lots.

IMHO

What's so awful about the copy? Just about everything!

As mentioned already, it isn't the sort of conversation real people would have, nobody talks like that (except in bad spots) and it doesn't even make sense. The woman talks like she IS a car dealer ad.

And that's where a few tweaks can make it suck a lot less. With the caveat that I still hate "two people talking" spots, here's what I'd do..Instead of a straight up convo, have the wife in the car as it stalls (sfx). She's frustrated, and calls her husband on the phone. He's an idiot and doesn't know what to do. Then the "voice of authority" comes on the radio in her car in the form of an ad for Tm's Used Vehicles. Wife says "I've got an idea...hold on" then she turns up the "radio" and the ad plays out a bit. A spot within a spot. Then the wife tells the husband to meet her at the corner of (wherever the dealer is located) and to bring the checkbook. He's still bewildered, but she shushes him. She's got it covered. Then if there's time, tag it with the dealer's name again.

There's been a conversation, but it's more realistic. The dealer's info is in the spot, but in a sly way, not in your face. The woman has gone through a transformation from frustrated to confident, and it's all because of the car dealer. On the production side, it'll take a little more work painting the picture with the sfx, but the MV role can be reduced to little more than "uh" and "um," and the FV role can be done with as few lines as possible.

The worst part about the copy, though, is that the client wrote it. Car dealers are simple creatures...easily impressed by explosive sound effects and shouting, so the one that wrote the above copy probably thinks it's Shakespeare. So here's what I'd do. Produce the improved spot, then have the sales weasel bring the client down to the studio to hear the finished product. Make 'em feel special and important. When they arrive, send the weasel out of the studio (send him to get coffee, or just kick him out) and play the new, improved spot for the client. I've learned that clients tend to listen to the production guy. Why? Because you're not the sales weasel. You're a professional, technical guy. They suspect you're not trying to sell them a bill of goods, so they may trust your judgement.

You guys understand, I hope, that I am having some fun with you. At one time or the other I have been every character in your drama. I've been the radio announcer asked to produce a commercial. I've been the salesman on the street selling advertising. I've worked in the automobile business. And I've been the Station Manager trying to "ride herd on this Goat Rodeo".

Ford: You don't seem to like car dealers. They seem to rank somewhere below dirt in your ranking system. You don't like radio sales people. You call them weasels. I wonder what they call announcers and production people when the sales weasel goes in to see the station manager about how production is being a trouble-maker in getting commercials written, produced and on the air.

I've raised the question in these forums before: How is broadcasting coming along in joining the rest of the world in adopting "Lean Process" otherwise referred to as Toyota Style Management.

I'm sitting here looking at my copy of James Womack's book titled "Lean Thinking" which I haven't cracked open for several years. You guys ought to get a copy. Share one with the car dealer. Share one with the sales weasel. Something wonderful might happen.

When I sat in the manager's chair, my response to situations like this was: We're just the wait-staff keeping the glasses full and the empty dishes carried away while the advertiser and the potential customer carry on a conversation. Give them whatever help and assistance you can, but as long as the car dealer is responsible for writing the check at the end of the month, offer suggestions on another menu item he might like better, but in the end we serve him what he orders.

Here is what I learned: Listeners don't know that they are supposed to only respond to high-class advertising. Sometimes they don't know any better and they actually like the message of the commercial and they respond.

That's why we hear crappy spots contine on the radio.

Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:

Ford: You don't seem to like car dealers. They seem to rank somewhere below dirt in your ranking system. You don't like radio sales people. You call them weasels. I wonder what they call announcers and production people when the sales weasel goes in to see the station manager about how production is being a trouble-maker in getting commercials written, produced and on the air.

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I actually like individual car dealers. I've worked with many over the years. Yet as a whole, car dealers aren't the best when it comes to creative advertising. Most car dealer spots have explosive sound effects, a shouting announcer, and if you're lucky a quickly read, unintelligible disclaimer at the end. Sometimes, they actually appreciate it when you give them feedback. I worked with a shouty car dealer awhile back, and when he was screaming in one spot where it wasn't appropriate (I think it was a holiday spot) I told him straight up. "Hey, think about what your message is here. You should probably dial it back a bit." He actually thanked me and said "that's why I like you, you aren't afraid to tell me when I'm wrong."

And sales people? Let's just say I used "weasel" as a term of endearment. But even good sales people are often more interested in getting the check than in helping the client. I can't tell you how many times I've sat there recording a client doing an absolutely terrible spot, while the sales guy stands there and says "sounds terrific!"

But going back to the OP, all he wants to do is produce a good spot. Something that works for the client. Something that makes the owner of Tim's Used Car Lot (presumably, Tim) coming back for more. But it seems that if he speaks up and tries to offer a critique, then "production is being a trouble-maker." If so, then I must be a really big trouble maker.

As far as the restaurant analogy - comparing us to waitresses whose only job is to take the order and maybe suggest a side item - I'd say that's part of the reason we're hearing crap commercials. Just get the sale done and make sure the check clears. If it doesn't work for the client, just go get another client, and keep burning through as many as you have to in order to hit budget.


In a few hours, millions of people will be tuned into a football game. Many of them will tune in just to see the commercials. Every year the spots get nearly as much attention as the game itself. Would that happen if the people responsible for writing and producing the spots were little more than wait-staff? Or order takers? Or trouble makers?

May I make a humble suggestion to Mr. Cowboy:

Put down your copy of Lean Thinking and instead, pick up a copy of Stan Freberg's It Only Hurts When I Laugh. Maybe it'll help you understand that what you put on the air has a little more value than the side orders at your local Applebee's.

I'm not trying to carry on a serious argument with you guys. I'm here playing the rodeo clown to encourage you to really think through what we say. Radio during my lifetime has been notorious for living in a make believe world.... not asking or answering the right questions. I don't propose that I have the right answers... but I have a lifetime of asking the right (stupid, sometimes) question right in the middle of staff meetings that get people focused on the important versus the unimportant.

I don't know what size market the Original Poster works in. Maybe a bit larger than what I am going to describe. This very discussion often takes place in a station serving a town of maybe 25,000 people. Lets assume there are another 20,000 out in the county. So we have 45,000 people and maybe that translates to 20,000 meaningful adults. (I'm leaving out the children and the very elderly. So at any given moment maybe we have maybe 2,200 people who are listening to radio. Unfortunately, most markets like that today have at least 10 significant signals available to those people. If your station is "the pick of the litter" for that market, maybe you are reaching 750 listeners when that commercial goes on the air.

Some business people have figured that out and know that the right message at the right time will produce results. Some business people have figured out that among those 750 listeners will be three of their competitors and they buy some advertising not because it will make them rich with new customers, but because it gives them a vehicle "to mess with the heads" of his three competitors. You could actually be dealing with a customer who is playing head-games with his competitors... and is loving every moment of it... and finds the prices your station charges to be a reasonable cost for his social experiment. And you may be dealing with "a sale weasel" who understands what is going on and loves the game because it then becomes possible for him to go sell time to one or two of those people who are being "messed with".

And then... out of the 750 listeners who may hear the commercial, some of them are suspicious of fancy business people who wear suits and go to the country club.... and the wonderful, prize-winning, professional commercial you would produce if the customer and the sales weasel would just listen to you guys would be the "dog whistle" that says to the customer (we will call him the Redneck customer for this example) "Beware of this business.. it's too upity for you."

Trust me on this one. They are in the minority but we could do a television "Reality Show" built around some of the colorful business people I've sold advertising to. The good ones don't know why they do what they do. The BEST ones know EXACTLY why they do what they do... and they were the most fun... head-games and all.

Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:

I'm not trying to carry on a serious argument with you guys.

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And you are succeeding! Allow me to not respond seriously.

Now I realize some of us folks in the big city may be too fancy or uppity for y'all down there at the rodeo, but I'm a-guessin' the Original Poster (what they done call it on the internets) is probably one 'o them fellers a-lookin' to git himself outta that there small market what he's been workin' in. He prolly figures he's danged good enough to work fer a station what sells big time ad-ver-tisin' to more 'n a few hundred folks. What y'all are doin is a-tellin' him he ain't! Y'all are sayin' that what them fellers up in the big city does with commercials ain't no different 'n what the good 'ole boys down at yer stations been doin' fer years, and if he's a-thinkin' differnt, he's a danged fool!

Now I don't know what sorta outfit that boys a workin fer now, but danged if he ain't got his heart in the right place! See, some of us folks been workin' in the big city fer awhile now, and we see things a danged sight different than folks down at some podunk rodeo. It ain't that we're all high-falutin', but we got ourselves bigger fish to fry than some good 'ole boy fixin' ta mess with his buddy down the road. Fellers what sell cars up here got themselves some big time competition, and some folks 'round these parts like them fancy cars too. Why, some folks up here got themselves what those suits like to call "standards." Like if that good 'ole boy a-put that there spot in his "original post" on his demo tape, folks in the city might figure he's not ready fer the big time rodeo!

And if he listens to the manure yer a-shovelin', he ain't never gonna be.

My COL has about 8000 people, market rank roughly 160. I've worked in top 10 markets but found wanting to get there was better than actually being there. I have roots here and I can do without PPM and giant egos. As a lifelong Radio guy, small markets are more satisfying IMO.
Thank you all for your insights.

The "as long as the check clears" mentality is a plague and is typically followed by the "radio doesn't work for me" objection. With poorly written copy, they're absolutely right. Radio constantly fails advertisers. The minute radio does something "as long as the check clears" or allows the client to do something ineffective, we have failed. The goal is not to make the client like their spot or deliver their message. Thinking those things are important fuels the problem. The goal is to generate more revenue for the client. Period. If that happens, generating revenue for the station becomes simple.

At the risk of over-simplification, the risk of romanticizing the industry into something "sacred" that it never was.... let me leave the cowboy hat out on the table in the lobby for a moment.

I worked for some great owners of small market radio. They saw themselves as part of the bigger industry. They had grown up under some mentors and they felt the industry had been good to them. For whatever reason, they ended up owning small market radio stations. They could have worked their way on up the ladder, constantly reaching for the next golden ring.

Beyond the obvious need and goal of trying to make a good living for themselves, they felt some obligation to not just "use and abuse" the hired help, but to mentor us, to challenge us, and prepare us to eventually make our own choices: climb the ladder, constantly reaching for the next golden ring, find our own little mom-and-pop radio station, or get-the-hell-out of the industry and find new dreams.

So yes, its good business for even the smallest station selling to a buy-here pay-here used car lot to deliver a professional level of service. Good copy. Good production. Hopefully, good results. I had one owner tell me straight up: The first 40 hours you work in a week earns you a paycheck so you can have food, a place to sleep, and some decent clothes to go out in public. The hours you put in beyond that is your investment in hour own future. And all of us working there wanted to deliver the best voicing and programming possible. We owed him reasonable performance for what he paid us. we GAVE him over-and-above in return for the coaching we got when we were doing our "investment in ourselves" extra hours.

I commend the OP for wanting to do the right thing. He wants to treat the customer right. He wants to treat the ears of the listener right. He wants to see the sales person be just as demanding on himself/herself and the OP is on himself. I did it for 15 years. But then it looked like the right thing if I would leave the business so my kids could stay in the same school year after year rather than chasing Dad's dream back and forth across the landscape.

Yeah, I guess you need to do the very best commercial production possible. That is an investment in YOUR career. If the station and the sales rep want to be second class, you can't carry them on your back. But having been an observer of the business from the outside (and having worked for the car dealer for several amazing years, I still come back to where I took this thread in a strange direction. You cannot believe the really off-the-wall things that bring people into a dealership. You cannot believe the logic and non-logic that the customers unload during the transactions of the sales process. It is totally possible that the "dumb commercial" that you really wanted to do better.... may have paid off well for the dealer.

Such is life.

Now, if it will make any of you feel any better about the whole conversation: I have a studio at home. I'm working on narrations and audio books. I am an absolute perfectionist running around re-reading a lot of my work because it wasn't my best. Down deep... I am a member of your tribe. I left radio in part because I couldn't find someone who would let ME do MY BEST and I knew the searching couldn't go on forever.

As regards to radio advertising - sometimes things are just out of your control. For instance....

For years and years here in Phoenix we had a car dealer named Lou Grubb. His advertising was the epitome of quiet, informative and pleasant conversation. He didn't as much sell his product as he did himself and his dealership and you actually wanted to do business with him because he didn't shout or lie to you.

Unfortunately, his product was Chevrolets and I was never in the market for one of those so his ads fell on my deaf ears.

Now we have one of the loudest and most obnoxious ads running on TV here from Hyundai. Although I hate their ads beyond belief I recently bought a Hyundai because it got great universal reviews from the auto press.

Lou spent all that money to reach me in a mode that I truly respect but he couldn't make the sale because he was selling the "wrong" product. Hyundai pisses me off every time I hear their obnoxious screaming announcer but I love (and bought) their product.

Coda.


So a couple days ago, I was asked by a couple of our intrepid sales warriors to create a new spot for a heritage car dealer in town. The dealer said they wanted something different. Something that stood out from all the other ads on the radio. Something that branded them as a dealer that had served the market for generations.

The agency and the sales goddesses agreed that the spot should be tasteful, classy, and one that would brand the hell out of the dealer as the sort of place you could trust to sell your grandma a car.

I obliged. It wasn't a super-creative spot, but I kept this thread and the Dodge "farmers" ad from the Superbowl in mind as I did my work. It came together almost effortlessly. A 60 second spot that was drenched in local trustworthiness and heritage. I was pretty proud of the work I'd done. It was epic. You could almost see the big American flag waving in the background. If I could have had Morgan Freeman voice the thing, I'd be holding a Clio Award a year from now.

The sales people LOVED it. The agency LOVED it. And then told us they couldn't present it to the dealer, because it didn't contain all the copy points they wanted to squeeze in (that they'd never sent us), it wasn't fast-paced enough, and could we leave room for a disclaimer and co-op copy at the end? But they LOVED the spot. Just meet us halfway with what the dealer wants to hear, and we'll be good to go!

So I did. I (gently) took an axe to the spot I'd created. Kept the concept, but crammed all the copy they wanted into the spot. Met the agency halfway, and somehow managed to come up with what was a shadow of the original work, but still a damned good spot. The sales goddesses were elated. The agency LOVED the spot. Oh, and can you lose the music you picked and give us something a bit more uptempo? And put this one more price point in? Thanks.

The client HATED it. They threw it out, took their copy points, and came up with a script that read like every single other car dealer spot in town.

Come Monday, I will record the new spot. I will scream into my microphone. The music will be intense. I will add explosions to every price point. And there will be reverb. Oh, there will be copious amounts of reverb. The spot I will give them will be exactly the opposite of what they requested (remember...they wanted something different), but it will be approved. And it will play. And when the flight ends, the dealer will say "see, radio doesn't work."

Ford said:

Come Monday, I will record the new spot. I will scream into my microphone. The music will be intense. I will add explosions to every price point. And there will be reverb. Oh, there will be copious amounts of reverb. The spot I will give them will be exactly the opposite of what they requested (remember...they wanted something different), but it will be approved. And it will play. And when the flight ends, the dealer will say "see, radio doesn't work."

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Ahhh... you have reminded me why it is probably a good thing that I walked away from radio when I did. You have a choice of two things that might have happened to me if I hadn't:

1. About the 27th time I went through what you just described, I would have died of heart failure at much too young an age.

2. About the 22nd time I went through what you just described, I would have gone on a shooting rampage and killed the sales people and the client and the state would have given me the death penalty at much too young an age.

Have a good time in the Production Room Monday. Then go have an extra beer Monday night and send me the bill. ;D You will deserve it.

Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:

Have a good time in the Production Room Monday.

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Oh, I will.

One of my secret perverse joys (when presented with a scenario like I've described) is creating a spot that is so ridiculously over the top that the client couldn't possibly approve, then hearing the spot on the air when they do.

If I'm lucky, they'll want to run it on every station in the market, and I'll get a check that rewards my absurdity.

I can see that there is even more mischief in your blood than there is in mine.... and I have a pretty generous supply.

Do have fun. We will all be rooting for you.

Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:

We will all be rooting for you.

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Of that I have no doubt.

FWIW, I feel your pain. Had the almost exact situation with a car dealer yesterday. Sometimes no matter how distasteful you have to swallow and give in. Since the vast majority of sales reps have little to no integrity they will never understand how painful it can be.
The 2nd beer is on me.

Ford said:

Come Monday, I will record the new spot. I will scream into my microphone. The music will be intense. I will add explosions to every price point. And there will be reverb. Oh, there will be copious amounts of reverb. The spot I will give them will be exactly the opposite of what they requested (remember...they wanted something different), but it will be approved. And it will play. And when the flight ends, the dealer will say "see, radio doesn't work."

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