By Dan O'Day

By Dan O’Day
Back when I ?rst started presenting at the RAB
Annual conferences about 11 years ago, I was
one of the ONLY speakers at the entire confer-
ence who focused on the actual creation of the
commercial. I was looked upon as someone who
was “out of the mainstream.” Other sessions were
conducted by famous sales trainers, teaching
sales techniques: cold calling, presentation skills,
closing skills, overcoming objections ... and then
there was me, standing on my soapbox and saying, “But what about the actual product we’re selling?”
Now it seems like a lot more people are paying attention not just to ways to sell commercials but also
on ways to make sure the commercials themselves sell.
The importance of making sure we produce results for our advertisers always seemed incredibly obvious to
me ... and maybe it was obvious to some other people, too, but certainly our industry as a whole simply wasn’t
prepared to invest any real time or money in training people how to create effective Radio advertising.
Radio creative has always been important. But today it’s become vital as a result of the increased number of
stations on the dial, consolidation, the maturation of the industry, increased competition from every kind of
medium and every direction. And that includes competition from media that didn’t even EXIST in 1994.
WIRTHLIN STUDY
The recent Wirthlin Study produced by the Radio Ad Effectiveness Lab (RAEL) really brought home
the idea of relating to the audience of your station. In other words, stressing the importance of a direct,
RELEVANT connection to the listener. That’s what consumers respond to in a Radio commercial - how
relevant it is to their lives; not how “creative” or “entertaining” the commercial is. Consumers really don’t
care about a commercial’s “production design.” What they care about is the relevance of the message
TO THEIR OWN LIVES. And that’s pretty much what I’ve been preaching since 1991. My only frustra-
tion has been that usually I get to spend only one day with a group. One day is enough to open people’s
eyes, to shake them up a bit, and we can cover a lot of ground in a single day, but there’s so much more.
That’s one of the reasons why I am teaming up with the RAB to produce a three-day workshop coming
in April called “WRITING RELEVANT COPY TO INCREASE ROI.”
You might call it a “Total Immersion” learning experience. The 25 people who attend will spend three in-
tense days focusing solely on ways to get the advertiser’s message across as powerfully as possible.
IDEAS
Let me share some of the ideas that will be explored. Day One will be devoted to HOW TO CREATE

---

MAXIMUM IMPACT RADIO ADVERTISING. Attendees wil learn a huge amount of both fundamental and
advanced principles of Radio advertising. Most people who write lots of Radio copy have never learned
how the medium really works. At best, they’ve been given a few “ground rules” that more often than not
are completely wrong. For example, have you ever been told you should mention the advertiser’s name
X number of times in a commercial - as though there’s a mathematical formula that insures success?
But shouting the advertiser’s name half a dozen times rarely brings you any closer to achieving the
RELEVANCE that is required of a successful campaign.
Another example of something many people erroneously have been taught is that you “should never
begin a commercial with a question.” I don’t know who started that urban legend, but it seems at least
half the people who come to my seminars have to unlearn that.
Recently I had someone object to my suggestion that beginning with a question CAN be effective, and
he supported his objection by saying, “That goes completely against what they taught me in college.”
Well, yeah. I’m not surprised. But LOTS of conversations are begun in real life by asking a question. And
Radio at its best is one person whispering in another person’s ear. So if it works in a real-life conversa-
tion, why is it impossible for it to work in a Radio commercial?
You also might have been told that a commercial should never begin with a “Yes/No” question, because
what if the listener says “no”? Well, I have two answers for that: In many situations, it’s perfectly okay
for someone to say, “No, I’m not interested.” Because you’re not trying to sell to them; you want to sell
to people who ARE interested. Regardless of how you begin your commercial, if it turns out to be irrel-
evant to a listener’s life, then that listener’s attention will drift away. But you want attract the attention of
people to whom the sales message is relevant. And secondly, sometimes I’m LOOKING for the people
who say “no.” What if a voice came on the air and asked, “If you died tomorrow, are you certain that your
family would have enough money to be ?nancially secure?” That’s probably a commercial for some sort
of life insurance or annuity, and it’s looking for the people in the audience who would respond, “Well, no.
Actually, I’m NOT sure my family would be ?nancially secure.”
Another quick example of things you might have been taught that real y shouldn’t work in a commercial is
street addresses. Say you’ve got a really good dry cleaner. You know, the kind that never breaks buttons
on your shirts and always uses the right amount of starch. And say your friend asks you if you know of
a good dry cleaner. Do you say, “Why yes, there is an excellent dry cleaner at 1101 3rd Avenue”? If so,
you’re one in a million because most people would say something like, “Yes, in fact, there’s this great little
dry cleaner on the corner of 3rd and Main St. right next to that big red building in downtown Arlington.”
In other words, write like the way people really talk. Don’t be afraid to say the dialogue out loud and see
if it’s something you or your friends or your parents or your grandparents might really say.

---

MORE TOPICS
At the workshop we’ll also go over fundamentals of Radio advertising: Radio’s real strengths versus
newspaper or television - and by that I don’t simply mean “reach & frequency;” I mean the things that
we can accomplish in a Radio commercial that are dif?cult if not impossible to do in print or on TV …
How to speak directly to the targeted consumer … How to use storytelling and humor and characters to
deliver your sales message … How & when phone numbers should be used - and by the way, even when
it IS appropriate to use an advertiser’s phone number, most people do it completely wrong … When to
mention the advertiser’s website and, again, HOW to talk about the website. We’re going to cover a lot
of ground on the ?rst day, including the implications of the Wirthlin Study and then how to USE those
?ndings to create compelling, money-making Radio advertising.
The second day wil be about Hypnotic Advertising and if anyone attended my session at RAB2005, you’ll
know that I raced through as many hypnotic techniques as I could. We’ll spend an entire day exploring
those techniques and a lot more. I feel that “Hypnotic Advertising” absolutely is the most powerful form
there is of advertising - and of selling in general.
The third day will be devoted to my Clutter-Busting Copywriting strategies. Everyone who attends will be
writing real commercials for their own real clients. Many Radio copywriters have to write a lot of copy in
a short amount of time. But that doesn’t mean they have to write mediocre copy. I’ll be teaching some
of the techniques that I use when I’m under pressure. Our goal is not to let anyone leave before they
realize they CAN write effective, unique, results-producing commercials. At the end of these three days,
you simply won’t have any excuses for NOT doing a great job for your clients.
NOT FOR BEGINNERS
This isn’t a beginner’s course. The people who will get the most out of it are those who already are writ-
ing a lot of commercial copy. In fact, the better they already are, the more they’ll pro?t from these three
days. This course is designed for anyone who writes a lot of commercial copy AND who truly has a strong
desire to produce the best possible results for their clients.
ESSENCE OF EFFECTIVE RADIO ADVERTISING
You know, Arthur Godfrey was a pioneer TV performer who began in Radio. He was famous for his live
commercials. Godfrey de?ned good Radio advertising as having only two requirements: “Listen to what
I’m saying, and believe what I’m telling you.” That’s what it’s all about: Getting the targeted consumer to
listen to your message, and, establishing enough rapport and credibility that they believe it.

---

What: “Writing Relevant Copy To Increase ROI”
Where: RAB Training Academy, Dallas TX
When: April 11- April 13
Featuring: Special Guest Trainer, Copywriting Guru Dan O’Day and
RAB’s Creative Director, Todd Carruth!
Class limited to just 25 attendees… DON’T BE LEFT OUT! Call
early because if you:
Register by 3/8/05 and pay $750 per person
Register by 3/15/05 and pay $799 per person
Register by 3/29/05 and pay $899 per person
Register after 3/30/05 and pay $999 per person (still a great deal!)
Reserve your seat (or your clients’ seats) by contacting Mark Levy at
972-753-6756 or via e-mail at mlevy@rab.com.
1320 Greenway Dr., Suite 500
www.RAB.com
Irving, TX 75038
3-05-2
1-800-232-3131

---