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Monthly Archives: August 2011
Salesman Balls pt 9
” Can I just throw my cap into the hat? ”
“All the dishes were really fishy – like venison and duck…”
“It’s the golf course near Washington… you know, the green one…”
“My husband went camping on an island surrounded by water”
“I’ve just had a very anonymous phone-call”
“The words he used were ‘no”‘
“God… you two have eagle ears..!”
“It’s universal … indeed, it’s international”
“We should be recording it about half-thirty”
“Oh for crying out’s sake!”
“They’re all coagulating over there by the bar”.
“I’ve just got to go and pamper my nose”
“Can you make a meeting with me this morning? – the client’s biting at the chomp”
“It’s like showing a red face to a bull”
“They’ve got staff who can help you from start to beginning”
“It’s only a twenty, so 1 should be able to rattle it off in ten seconds”
“Come on, do your best… think of it as another £ 165 in the Swanee”
“My brain’s not commuting with my mouth”
“I’ve treated myself to a new suit – it’s a dark black one”
“You’ve got a stride in your step this morning”
“My brain’s off its head”
“For someone who’s funny, he’s not very funny”
“I can only make a provincial arrangement”
“Nell… you know about football… you’ve got your ear to the pulse…”
“Can you E-mail a hard copy over?”
“My mother was making Sunday Dinner on Sunday”.
“Oh God – 1 thought that was a chair – it’s not… it’s a cup…”
“How much is a piece of string?”
How Much?
“I feel a bit loathsome to mention it, but…”
“No smoking policies have been implicated in most businesses these days…”
“If you use TFM AND GNR, you hit them with a double whoopy”.
On brief:-“The client needs some clarification about twenty, thirty and forty second ads; e.g. how long they are…”
Exec on the phone to client: “Only one objection per commercial”
“I just want to make sure we’re all batting from the same sheet”
Exec: this 20″ script
me: yes
exec: why can’t you fit as much in it as you can in the 30″?
“Another inspirational script? Good – I expect nothing better.”
MD: “It’s not a black and white blueprint.”
Having to get a phone number in one of our commercials re-made, because one of our client’s customers has just pointed out to Mr Client that… “You can’t have a 12 in your number cos phone keypads don’t go up to 12….”
‘It’s a case of you scratch my back, I’ll do you a favour’
‘Right, back to the grinding stone’
“I can’t hear Classic Gold on my car radio cos it’s on Medium Wave and my car radio only gets FM and AM”
“Your articles should be made a must re
“Your articles should be made a must read for anyone working in the radio industry. We need a law now!” http://wp.me/1ss7O
http://wp.me/p1ss7O-4Y Websites in radio
http://wp.me/p1ss7O-4Y Websites in radio ads… a waste of time and money?
Before you insist on your website in you
Before you insist on your website in your radio commercial… http://wp.me/p1ss7O-4Y
“I want my website in my radio ad…”
Yesterday the client sent back their re-written script. They were trying to drive ticket sales through about three outlets. Not a massive problem. But then they added the seemingly compulsory website address… “for more information”.
What more information do you need! The ad gave the event, the prices, and where to buy tickets, you COULDN’T buy them online. The web address was just a waste of time… and lessened the impact because now I was confused… am I supposed to go and buy tickets or go to the website? I now had less time in the scripts to sell the BENEFITS of going to the event.
The client just lessened the impact of their radio spots.
Oh… but that wasn’t the end of it. They wanted a SECOND web address! And on both they wanted to say www dot! There is a convention in radio advertising that you can drop the www because a) it’s assumed and b) it’s long and adds 2 seconds to an ad! Unfortunately in this instance we were separated from the client by an Advertising Agency. Not Creatives, or people interested in helping the client get campaigns that work… but in this case by an Account Handler that was just interested in the short term commission.
Dear Mr. or Ms. Client…. Just because you HAVE a web address, doesn’t mean it should be in your radio ad. What EXACTLY are you trying to get people to do? If I’m selling hotdogs I want people to come and buy hot dogs, not to visit my hotdog website, or even to “like” my hotdog Facebook page.
If you DO need a web address is… and you’re selling something there… and that’s your objective… them make sure you have a radio friendly web address. Don’t use hyphens, underscore or ambiguous words.
If I say “Rushton too be creative dot com” is that http://www.rushton2beecreative.com? Or http://www.rushton2Bcreative.com?
If you have a complicated address, think about buying another address where you can just forward to your existing one. For example http://www.simonrushton.com just forwards to this blog. I had a client who had an address that was a bit like this… (I have changed some of the exact details )
http://www.the_white_swan_canterbury.co.uk
Their offer was on their famous steaks. They bought the address which was something like
http://www.Iwantabigfatjuicysteak.com.
Much better for radio AND their campaign! We were able to say… “to print out your 2 for 1 voucher visit “I want a big fat juicy steak dot com””.
Web addresses can be great for radio, after all radio is the medium that internet consumers use while they are surfing the net. But think about what you want people to do. If you want them to visit your site, why should they? What is in it for them? Think about web offers, printable vouchers, or money off coupons sent to their mobile phone. Think about making your site usable for e-commerce, for online catalogues and ordering tools… not just some fancy graphics and flash animations put together by your nephew to “look cool”.
And please, please, please don’t try to put TWO web addresses into your ads!
Salesman Balls pt 8
Have you ever been in a meeting where, due to the pressure of the call, the Sales Exec has said something that’s had you bite through your pencil trying not to laugh? Here are some examples of genuine things Sales Execs have said in meetings, or to creatives ….
“Look – I don’t want to eat the hand that bites me…”
“There’s no point in talking to him – we’ll be much better off speaking directly to the horse’s mouth”.
“There are two objectives here …. b…….”
” You’ve heard this from his own ears…”
” Oh that old nutshell.”
“And then on Tuesday morning, you can have the day off..”
“I need prepayment up-front.”
“Give me something sharp and blunt to throw at him.”
“Yes, the housing market is very cut and throat..”
” 1 think we’ll have to do that for him just as a way of extending the fig leaf…
“We don’t want to highlight C2DEs as the problem democrats..”
“My Dad’s on a fitness freak at the moment”
“I won’t bill it until I get a signed signature”
“I was at my funeral last year”
“Naturally, I inclined the offer!”
“Tuesday the eighteenth of November….. what day is that?”
“Is textbook all one word?
– Only if you use it as textbook.”
“I’ll be around all day, except in the afternoon”
“This will really set the seeds in motion…”
“Is she not of Indian Caucasian?”
“Bolton – that’s a palindrome isn’t it?”
“You’ve hit the nail on the hedge there!”
“It’s like dipping your toe in lots of different things.”
“I’d like to raise some light on the issue”.
“There’s a lot of thoughts of schools on this…”
“So, are they top or bottom end of the market?
– I’d say they’re more middle end.”
“I want you to put your thinking kettles on”
“(singing along to Dragon’s Ordinary men’ … “These are the dreams of
all the married men”
“When is Spring this year”
“I’ll have you know, I’m highly illiterate”
“I was a dead duck in the water”
“Come on let’s get this place looking audible” (during a spring clean)
"We'll have to charge him full fruit."
“If he wants to go to air next week we’ll have to charge him full fruit”
“You can only hit something with a hammer so many times until nothing
happens”
“It’s never been done before, we’re setting a President.”
“What models of dogs are really moving at the moment” (To a pet shop
client)
Salesman Balls pt 6
“Are you going to the Manchester derby?”
– “Who are they playing?”
“Don’t keep playing the same thing over and over again – it’s so repetitive..”
“Is he a born-again Christmas?”
“I don’t think that’s the right pronuncination”
“That makes my blood curl”
“They look at you as if to say, ‘I don’t want to speak to the monkey grinder””
“Spring only starts when summertime ends”
“The ripping sound of crushing bones”
“He looked at me as if I’d jumped off a foreign planet”
“You dug yourself into a battering ram”
“This man works from home, you know… that’s no hard feat”
“Somebody has turned the temperature off..”
“All the hotels I’ve called are bully fooked”
“My head was bleeding with blood”
“It’s no skin off my toes..”
“What size feet do you take?”
“But that’s philosophically logic”
“Did you sort your head-rest out for the wedding?”
“I heard it at 5.30 and at half past”
“I feel like I’m in a goldfish”
Salesman Balls pt 7
“Would you like a cup of tea, Matt?”
“I’d love a cup of tea, Mike”
-“Tea or coffee?”
“It’s me mum’s birthday and she’d love a denomination on the radio”
“At this stage, I’m just fishing the ground out”
“I haven’t got my glasses on, so I can’t hear you”
(Agency script: “FX: A herd of man-eating cannibals”)
“He doesn’t have a problem liquidising cars”
“Sometimes, presenters can get witch-hunted away by other stations”
“He’s got this brilliant golf stimulator”
“You may wish to use Ingrid Bergman, who presents our’Hits not Homework’ show”
“But don’t worry, Maurice… because it’s not goodbye – it’s adieu”.
“It stuck out like a sore balloon”.
“We’re a big fish in a smallish sea.”
“The cart wags the horse over there.”
“That’s another hammer in the coffin”.
“It’s exactly the same price as last year, except for the increase.”
“The postcode is NE 1 1, AON… that’s A for Orange.”
A is for Orange
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