Commercials: Crafting the right message for television or radio

So you need a commercial, television or radio, to promote your product, service, business, organization or event. As you can imagine, the sources are numerous. Local media offer free or low-cost production for advertisers purchasing airtime. Area advertising professionals and firms charge a little more to develop strategically focused, creative spots or campaigns. Mass-production service bureaus offer pre-produced generic ads for local use. So do vendor and corporate partners; simply add a name or logo and— poof!—you’re done.

It’s challenging to take a pre-produced ad and make it integrally pertinent to your business. Not to mention that usually the exposure for the advertiser, the business paying for most or all of the ad, is restricted to a five-to-10-second logo flash and/or mention at the end. I tend to prefer commercials that are written and produced for the specific advertisers using them.

Writing effective television and radio commercials can be a little bit involved. It goes way beyond just finding a great creative idea. There are the branding and strategy-related components that need to be considered as well. Our creative brainstorming sessions tend to get a little crazy as ideas fly back and forth. Many concepts that come out of this process could not be written about here, much less used to promote one of our clients. But others––“clean,” creative, witty, even brilliant options––are put aside because they cannot be integrated with the strategic goals of the spot or campaign.

So what are the strategic elements that need to be considered? We start by identifying what needs to be accomplished by the advertising. Is it awareness? Is it image enhancement or a shift in consumer perceptions of the product or service? Is the ad being used to educate the consumer? Is attendance at a special event the goal?

Once we determine what we are trying to accomplish with the advertising, our team moves on to identifying who is the primary audience for the commercial. Who will buy this product or service? The more that is known about the target audience, the better. Gender, age, education level, household income, geographic location, spending habits, likes, dislikes—any demographic or psychographic information available can provide insight.

The challenge from there is to jump into the minds of the consumers and look at things from their perspective. Why would they shop at this business? An involved business owner or manager probably has a pretty good idea about the advantages or disadvantages his or her business has versus the competition. The tricky part is recognizing which of those elements are truly motivators to potential customers. What would make them choose this organization over a competitor?

A good script involves the audience. Our goal is to create emotion within the listener. We want them to actually visualize themselves using the product or service.

Understanding the ad medium we are writing for is also an important component. If its radio, we are relying solely on what can be heard. Some creative concepts do not translate well into an exclusively audio format. At the same time, a writer can get away with some techniques that won’t work elsewhere. For instance, broken sentence structures and awkward phrasing are often acceptable. It’s usually best to write a radio spot in the same conversational style people use to communicate on a day-to-day basis.

Television offers the luxury of using both audio and visual elements to convey the message. In some cases, you may want to limit your script and allow the video images to tell more of your story. In others, the audio component is a crucial partner to getting the message across. Either way, in television, the visual is very important. It can be video, still photos, artwork or words on screen, but change and variation are critical to keeping the viewer’s interest.

Developing commercials for broadcast media is not difficult, but it does take some strategizing and attention to the details. Writing good, effective radio and television advertising doesn’t mean every spot will win awards. But in my book, the best reward is when our clients’ marketing objectives are met.

Advertising that speaks to people about what matters to them is more likely to drive traffic, change opinions, inspire action or create a sale. When that happens, you know you’ve written a good ad. Of course, once it’s written, the spot heads off to production. But that’s a different article.