About time too

September 10th, 2009

The tagging element of this has great potential for advertisers (see Shell Like blog posts passim).

Aerial Awards Shortlist Announced

August 21st, 2009

Shortlist for this year’s Aerial Awards for excellence in radio advertising has been announced. We didn’t make the final cut this year, but then coincidentally we never do in years with an odd number in them, having won the big annual awards in 2004, 2006 and 2008. So get your scripts in to us now for guaranteed gongs in 2010!

Mercurial…

May 26th, 2009

An interesting round-table discussion set up by the US RAB ahead of its Radio Mercury Awards can be viewed here.

Top US creatives dissect what is wrong with radio and offer up some solutions. Some of the points raised are things that we have been banging on about for ages, so it is nice to hear ‘the great and the good’ share the same views.

Also look out for a slightly avant-garde moment from the editor of the video about 4′50″ in, where he/she has decided to show Ogilvy & Mather’s worldwide creative director, David Fowler, react in classic ‘noddy’ fashion to a comment from… himself.

Smile!

April 8th, 2009

Further conglomeration in the radio market with the news that UKRD has made an offer to acquire rival The Local Radio Company. On top of Global’s recent Heart re-brand and Ofcom proposing to the Government that the rules on local radio be relaxed and mergers encouraged, there is a sense that the ‘rabbit in the headlights’ mood from last year has now been replaced by determined action.

Everyone knows that commercial radio needs a strong offering to go up against the BBC. There aren’t many advertisers who wouldn’t sell their grannies to run an ad during Moyles, Wogan, or The Today Programme. Ofcom makes no secret of the fact that a move towards ‘county-sized’ stations that are available only on DAB, is a way in which to create a UK-wide commercial DAB multiplex. This could provide the fertile ground required for genuine commercial challengers to emerge to go up against the current BBC heavyweights in the division.

However this is arrived at, one thing that commercial radio will need are the personalities. Hopefully having ‘bigger’ local stations will mean the emergence of, or stations will be able to start paying the wages for, presenters who will rival the popularity of the BBC’s big hitters. Then the audiences will follow, and so will the advertisers.

On a lighter note - take a click through these portraits on the Guardian website of some well-known radio faces. Now I am no Annie Leibowitz, but I feel for some the moody ’stare in to space’ was an ask too far. Look out for Campbell, Klass and Davis.

Radio Competition Trail

March 10th, 2009

It’s funny because it’s true(ish).

Location, Location, Location

January 21st, 2009

Hello again everybody. Sorry we have been a bit quiet on the blog front in the first 3 weeks of 2009. The last time we posted, George W Bush was still counting paperclips in the Oval Office, and the banks were actually lending people money. Crazy huh?!

The reason for our slackness is that we have been out and about a bit lately. For Splenda radio (breaking on air next week) we were recording some improv scripts at the rather superb cafe, Lantana, just around the corner in Goodge Place. If you are in the area, I urge you to pay them a visit. Shelagh and her lovely staff looked after us superbly well. The blog on their site is also worth reading too.

Also last week, we were on location for T-mobile. Some of you may have seen the long version of the TV ad whilst watching Celebrities On The Toilet or whatever it is called on C4 last Friday. It’s a brilliant, flash-mob style film where hundreds of commuters at Liverpool Street station dance about spontaneously. Its all here for you to enjoy.

We spent the day accosting members of the public gathering audio vox pops for the radio campaign. Let’s just say, even though it was brass-monkey freezing, it was great fun. Special mention has to go to our interviewer Mark for wearing long johns to stave off the cold, and opting not to refer to them as a ‘base layer’. They have got a name, so use it I say!

Worrying times

December 5th, 2008

Woolies going to the wall, MFI collapsing like a badly constructed flat-pack chest of drawers. The next big name on the high-street or retail park to bite the dust is anybody’s guess.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but Woolies missed a trick in trying to beat Tesco at selling cheap toasters, DVDs and games, instead of concentrating on what it did best. Namely the Pick’n'mix and spectacularly surly assistants.

Seriously though, as company’s fold, then so do potential clients for us, and that is worrying. The less players there are in the market then the less accounts there are for us to work on. As any biologist will tell you, diversity is the key to allowing life on earth to adapt and prosper. That is why we have a competition commission.

But as companies go then new ones will come along to replace them. They may not be on the high-street in the same way as before but the new guys will still need to differentiate themselves from the competition in some way. Advertising is one way of doing this and radio should be part of that. In fact, when you think about it, if everyone else is fighting to catch people’s eyes as they are surfing the web (surely there must be a better name for this activity now?) then why not go for their ears instead?

Big Awards

October 27th, 2008

We were lucky enough to be finalists in the Campaign Big Awards 2008!

In the Charity & Public Service (RADIO) section. Details here.

FINALIST

Title: Repetition

Client: Network Rail

Brand: Network Rail

Marketing director: Mark Shaoul

Agency: Iris Worldwide

Writer: Susan Young

Production company: Shell Like

Director: Susan Young

Tagging

October 9th, 2008

I was talking to a mate the other day, and he said he was annoyed to have missed Ian Hislop’s BBC4 programme about Dr Beeching. He said that he had seen a trailer for it, and had meant to watch it, but had forgotten it was on.

Aside from the fact that he can watch it again on i-player, it got me thinking about tagging. Very few of us have time to read through the schedules and set our PVRs or SKY+ to record what we’d like to watch later.

Some EPGs from SKY and Virgin Media in particular have a reminder button, but that only pops up when you are watching TV to remind you to switch over. Surely a good idea would be that every trailer has a ‘red button’ function embedded in it to automatically set your PVR, or at the very least a schedule reminder, when you actually happen to catch the trailer. That way if you happen to catch a trailer for something, but are just on your way out to Salsa class (we know who you are) you can just touch a button once and it’s all sorted for you.

The same goes for radio too. Radio manufacturer PURE recently launched a DAB set called FLOW that apart from loads of really cool functions, also apparently supports tagging. It means that the set itself has a button/function on it, which the listener is able to press whenever they hear something that piques their interest and that they want to come back to later. This has massive potential for advertisers. Offers and details can be picked up later by listeners. Money-off vouchers too.

This could also mean that (in an ideal world) the dreaded T&Cs could be read later along with any additional info about prices and stockists etc. It could be made compulsory to include them. This would mean more time in the 30″ slot for the creative bit (excellent!), but perhaps a dip in gigs for those clever fast-talking T&Cs (which is all done by time-compression now anyway!). Clip here is from Jonathan Kydd - if you need to book him then speak to Another Tongue and tell them I sent you.

JK Fast Read

Radio Ad Lab’s latest report…

August 22nd, 2008

It’s been a while since we last said “Hello” on the blog, so it was about time we popped our heads in to do just that.

Last week saw the publication of The Radio Ad Effectiveness Lab’s latest report “Engagement, Emotions, and the Power of Radio: A New Study of How Radio Affects Consumer Emotions”*.

A typical “radio” study (by which I mean it demonstrates an inferiority complex with regards to its relationship with TV) that through almost “scientific” analysis, proves radio has an emotional impact on consumers equal to that of television.

While Ken Dardis clearly doesn’t appreciate the report and its methods (and he makes some good points), he seems to miss the point with regards to its purpose: clients (and agency suits?) need to see to believe. They need more reassurance than just a quick sound bite. They deal in figures and digits. While Ken’s mantra (“move emotion and you’ll move product”) is entirely accurate, the fact that he’s been repeating it on his page since 1997 only goes to prove that people won’t just take your word for it.

The results demonstrate something we essentially already knew, what with radio being the most personal medium, but it seeks to approach the subject from a slightly different angle. So, while this is nothing new to those of us in the radio industry, advocates of the creative potential of the medium, it’s obviously something that the Lab thought needed demonstrating to clients who have yet to be convinced by the power of radio. Or Ken.

Yes – the report’s conclusions and suggestions may state the obvious, but when it comes to radio the message so often seems to get lost.

*I am aware that this is an American study, and that the industry is very different over the pond, but I think I can safely assume that Americans are somewhat human and may share the same emotions as us Brits.

-Rich