Crappy Radio II

Rick Stanton, Creative Director / President, Stanton & Everybody Advertising + Design

A while back I unloaded on lousy radio ads.
I’m back.
To quote writer, Theodore Sturgeon, “Ninety percent of everything is crap.”
This is also known as Sturgeon’s Law.
Radio ads? It’s closer to 95%.
As a student of the popular culture I listen and look at a lot of things that are not my cup of tea. In part, it’s how you learn what’s going on.
My wife and I recently spent the day driving to Centralia to visit my last two living uncles. I forgot the CDs so we spent four hours that day sampling various stations.
Not only is programming awful in most cases, it’s interrupted by even more ghastly tripe. Usually six minute bunches or “pods” as the radio people like to call them.
I think pod is an acronym for piles of dogdoo.
Why is it so bad?
Some think it’s not glamorous, so the B Team gets the assignment while the A Team is off to some exotic location shooting TV.
Some think radio is just the most likely place to dump all the crap you can’t fit into those TV spots. Every boring,, me-too feature and benefit that means absolutely nothing to anyone and provides no brand differentiation.
But there is also this dynamic: it’s less expensive to produce and in general, buy, so every local feather merchant within a hundred miles of the station’s sales force is on the air.
And to Sturgeon’s Law 90% of them don’t give a rat’s rear end about brand strategy, great creative or what really motivates loyalty to product and services.
Note: It’s not twenty-two years in business.
Someone else has twenty-three.
It’s creating that visceral sense of “like” based on emotional connectivity.
I can’t explain it but I just like those people(brand). I want to know them.
Part of the reason radio ads suck is part of the reason radio remains such a viable medium.
Most viable radio stations still have a loyal listener base that stems from the on-air personalities.
Corporate media giants still haven’t completely killed the local flair of formats like KMPS or KMTT. But they probably will.
So local advertisers try and take advantage of this relationship stations have with their primary listener base, but they completely blow the opportunity by putting crap on the air. And as reported before, this is supported by the
afore mentioned sales force who only care about making the sale and not the message.
Don’t get me wrong, as I’ve said before I love radio.
It’s the most raw and simple form of story telling there is in advertising.
There are no far off locations with craft services befitting Henry the VIII.
There are no art directors to hijack the story telling with special effects and brain-searing graphics, just us writers who understand the art of the well told tale.

Radio isn’t batting .100, it’s the hacks that make up the other 90% who are stinking it up.