Yesterday I was interviewed for Suite 101 by my former boss, mentor, former Head of Creative at Radio Clyde, quoter of Burns, and all round good guy Dan McCurdy.
Dan M Curdy
You can find the interview here.
Suite 101
You can find the interview here.
Category Archives: Just for Fun
You can find the interview here.
The Top 10 Worst Infomercials
It’s good to see that bad copy writing and terrible acting is not restricted to low budget, small station produced radio commercials.
Personally I don’t know how I survived those boring hours on the toilet without a Potty Putter.
Ladies… what would a Kush mean to YOUR life!?
Salesman Balls pt 10
Client – “You know, this radio thing is all new to us. What will our commercial sound like?”
Exec – “Don’t worry. Andy will lead you through the whole process hand in foot”
“50% will stay and the other 75% will go”
“I’m available anytime Tuesday morning after 12”
“There’s no such thing as the public service association, so i rang the
public service association and got onto them straight away”
“It’s a two man horse race”
“Here’s a brand new concept that started a while ago”
“This guy tries to buy radio like he buys his vegetables”
“Stock Barrel and Dice”
“Let’s put together the biggest Christmas hamper that God ever put breath
into”
“Look I’ll only tell you once … then I’ll tell you again”
“I’ve been running around like a bull arsed fly”
“Here comes the fire ambulance”
“It’s my birthmark, i’ve had it since i was born”
“The car park’s broken”
“They used cars like yours as cricket bats”
“You’ve been carrying on like a two bob goose”
“By Memory I can’t remember”
“Radio does work, look what it’s done for Bill Clinton”
“If they don’t like it they can hump it”
“Now you’re talking my tune”
“You have to keep killing them until they’re dead”
“I was born at one stage in my life also”
“Those two are as thick as wolves”
Back again… and the Earshot Creative Review
It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. The main reason was, I got married.
I had a huge amount of fun on the wedding day.
Back at work now and thinking about radio and radio advertising… and trying to help clients get the most out of their advertising. It wasn’t a good first day back with a client who can’t seem to get the fact that their visual pun doesn’t work on radio. Ah well… onwards and upwards.
While I was working in Sierra Leone I was interviewed for the Earshot Creative review. The publicity says… “Also this time, Nairobi-based radio advertising consultant Simon Rushton says we should always prioritise effective advertising over creative advertising and he explains how to do it. On a beach.”
I just want to say it’s right to say “prioritise” since I think radio advertising can be and should be entertaining, witty, funny, emotional, creative and innovative. But that should come along side the selling… and back up the motivation to act.
Did I say that in the interview?
Scary Floating Heads... that's me on the left!
Remembering Brian Glover
A bit of Friday nostalgia… remembering the lovely voice of Brian Glover, who sadly died in 1997 and some ads what I wrote for him. He had a fabulous voice and was great fun to work with.
The first one was for Renault Leicester, inspired by the late great Mike Hurley… and his Bill Bore character. He did something similar to this but I took the idea and took it a bit further. It got a Finalist Certificate in the London International Advertising Awards. Mike teased me for years about “borrowing” his idea.
The next features the voice of Rob Rackstraw. A little bit too Tetley Teabag for my liking, but that was the brief! The client was Newbolds. Brian, as usual, put so much effort into getting it just right.
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”
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
Salesman Balls pt 5
“Radio City’s first broadcast wasn’t 5.58 – it was two minutes to six..”
“We’re going to have to get some structure to these sales meetings – everybody keeps going off on a tandem”
“Have you got the sound effect of a mongoose in flight?”
“The frequency should help reverbitate the success of the campaign..”
“You’re the kind of guy who goes to the bank for fifty quid and asks for it in eights”
“Yes, you find that with blind people when their sight goes, another one of their senses
– like their vision – improves to compensate”
“Jack is another name for Bobby”
“I’ve got two words to say to you – Lancaster University Management School”
“If that isn’t the ket calling the pottle black”
(after being told that Sherlock Holmes couldn’t be used in a radio ad because of copyright)
– “Well, couldn’t you just spell it H-0-M-E-S?”
“You cease to amaze me sometimes”
“He was hanging on for grim death”
“Hard singers are good to find”
“People round here just take me for the piss.”
“Everybody was buying us free drinks!”
“That film with Eddy Murphy – Beverly Hops Kill”
“I’ll see that when I believe it.”
“At the end of the day, I’ve only got two pairs of hands..”
Two pairs of hands
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