1/ Ten Words Fay.
It’s a nickname I’ve picked up over the years.
Probably because whenever I speak to a group of young writers, I always encourage them to go back to their script and take out 10 words. Those words can be just tiny ones like an ‘it’ or a ‘the’ or a ‘got’- hate that word. Take out 10 words and watch the script breathe in production.
2/ The art of…..pause.
Rather than say the word or words try saying nothing. I love leaving a hole in a radio or TV ad. It’s the white space of print and it draws listeners in.
3/ Stop Shouting.
Imagine walking into a shop and the sales person started talking to you like this. HELLO, HOW ARE YOU? CAN I HELP YOU WITH ANYTHING TODAY? HAVE YOU SEEN OUR SPECIALS? You’d walk out of there so fast the security scanner would think it was yesterday.
Yet so many ads yell at us, I refuse to shop at those stores.
4/ Give Them Names.
I always give the characters in my commercials names like Sam or Sue…not MVO or FVO. When you gave your characters a name, a good voice will help you develop the character. I guarantee you that ‘Sam’ will give you a better read than ‘MVO’.
5/ Stop Producing.
As a sometimes voice, it drives me mad. You get handed a script and before you’ve even read it, they are telling you to how to read it. I never start producing a voice till they’ve read it 2-3 times in the studio. They might give me something I wasn’t expecting. Plus I always try and get the agent to email the voice the script before the session. Not only does it save time but if they’re worth their salt, they already have an understanding and a feel for what I want.
6/ Miracles May Not Happen.
A producer friend of mine recently told me a wonderful story. The writer wanted to have horses come from one side of the ad and horses come from the other side and then the lead horse in each group to meet and challenge each other…all in 7.5 seconds. It ain’t going to happen. Don’t expect miracles with sound effects…and if you do use them, tell people what they are hearing as they hear it.
7/ Find A Time
My best working time is between 4 and 6 p.m. don’t know why it’s just a time when things seem to pop out. Perhaps it’s because thoughts have been running round in my head all day. I know people who love late night-others lunch time.
Find your best time and keep it as clear as you can. I believe you will see a huge improvement in your quality and productivity.
shaunfay@ig3.com.au
24/8/09
Shaun’s Story : Timing
You know radio can be just the greatest media.
If you have a client who is prepared to have fun and you’re ready to go, you can use a major news or sport story almost as it’s breaking to create an ad that leaves people with a smile all day. I remember when I was working in New Zealand the day the two Rainbow Warrior bombers were released from prison early. Kiwis were justifiably outraged; it was an incredibly arrogant act by the French, an insult to New Zealand and its people. However one thing Kiwi’s have always enjoyed is a good sense of humour.
That very afternoon I managed to get an ad on the air for a liquor chain who just happened to have a sale on French Champagne…”No wonder they were released early-no French or New Zealander should miss this sale”….sold a bucket load in 5 days, till we decided like the rest of the world to start boycotting the stuff.
This brings me to this weekend we’ve just had here in Sydney where I now live.
New Zealand and Australia play every year for The Bledisloe Cup a Trans Tasman rugby cup. It’s a bitter rivalry fought in the greatest of spirits and always fiercely contested. On Saturday, New Zealand won by one point and starting today is the attached ad for a client of mine here in Sydney. Of course there was a ‘lose’ version as well, which I’m very pleased I didn’t have to use.
I am confident the ad will generate some street talk and hopefully get the announcers talking.
Radio…. I’m loving it!!!
Take care and I’ll see you next time with another of Shaun’s Stories.
shaunfay@ig3.com.au
I find it almost impossible these days to write a simple branding ad.
In this age of multiple types of communication, we have to be more direct. Radio used to love basking in its frequency halo. The tap dripping analogue…drip, drip, drip, drip. Well guess what, I ain’t standing under the tap long enough to get wet.
So now when I write a campaign, I desperately try and get a client to commit to a “Brand Action”. A message that doesn’t just brand but also gives people who may be in the market today, a reason to buy today.
Like the blinds company I do work for. I asked them how much is a set of blinds? Of course that depends on the blinds right? But what if we created a price point, a starter, a reference for people, a loss leader.
We developed 5 for $555. This went in every ad we did for them and created a 35% increase in sales, yet only 1% of that was 5 for $555.
A furniture store I do work for was struggling in an over crowded market. They were just a single, old family store and the big chains were quietly strangling them. We discovered their brand action almost by accident, tearing my hair out after a 2 hour meeting at the store. I eventually went up to a chair and said to the owner how long before I can have this chair at my place. “If it’s on the floor we can deliver by Friday”. In a world where it can 6 weeks sometimes 2 months for delivery, this store was offering “Delivered by Friday”. The owner put it everywhere, on her radio ads, business cards, store vans. A 45% increase in business- for something she was already doing.
If you’d like to hear one of the radio ads we did drop me a line.
Branding isn’t enough anymore…your client needs Brand Action- a reason to buy today
If you’d like to hear about some more brand action examples let me know otherwise I’ll see you next time with another of Shaun’s Stories.
shaunfay@ig3.com.au
You’d think after 30 odd years I’d be over it. Radio stations being tight on creative, but I’m not. You see the problem is most GM’s, CFO’s, GSM’s consider the air-time to be the product, not the actual thing that goes in that air-time. Yet, when you consider an hour on a music station anywhere in the world, news and traffic is about 5 minutes, announcer links another 3 minutes, supplied music 40 minutes, recorded ads the rest-up to 12 minutes!!
So why on earth does the biggest section of the radio’s creative get the least amount of resources? Because the air-time is the product not what goes into that air-time. And Shauney boy that ain’t ever going to change so leave your soap box and tell us something we didn’t know.
Well the above is linked really to this example. You see my writing isn’t that different from yours probably. Yes, I have lots of experience which allows me to decide what stays and goes and my credentials help me out when I’m convincing a client on a script.
But I imagine that in my day to day ads, I’m not that different to you, which is why to justify my exorbitant fees I spend so much of my time casting. Often half my time on a job is in the casting.
Here’s an example, More Than A Handful is a bra boutique in Sydney, Australia. I went down several directions for them - with a name like that, why wouldn’t you-but in the end we settled on some fairly straight ads. Written well but voiced superbly. The voice we choose in the end is a well known actress from a very popular drama series. Her agent wanted double what a normal voice would want. At first the client baulked but I finally convinced her and when you hear her timing and delivery I think you’ll agree she’s worth every cent.
Moral of the story…stop casting the same people, break out, take a risk because unless you try something or someone different, things will always be the same.
If you’d like to hear the full series drop me a line and I’ll see you next time with another of Shaun’s Stories.
shaunfay@ig3.com.au