Some really nice thoughts on ad breaks on radio stations from John Evington here.
I worked under John many many years ago (about 23 years ago) in Stoke on Trent UK. He knows his stuff! I’ll remind him sometime of the day he voiced an ad for me… promoting the Bolshoi Ballet…. and mentioning some of those Russian dancers by name.
The dapper John Evington
Dan O’Day is a great, reasoned, sensible thinker on radio advertising. He developed the Certified Professional Commercial Copywriter course for the RAB in the USA (I was the first person to qualify outside of Texas!!)
Here are some of his wise words… Click here.
Dan O’Day
Most radio stations in the world it’s the Breakfast show that is the flag ship and attracts the most listeners. This is where advertisers, naturally, want to focus their effort. Understandably. But lets break it down a little further. Here’s my typical morning:-
5.45am Wake up
6am into the kitchen turn the radio on while I prepare my breakfast.
6.30am hit the shower and get dressed for work.
7am Catch some TV news
7.45am on the motorbike to work (no radio)
8:05 at my desk with a cup of fruit tea… catching up on mails etc.
Now imagine if the peak of breakfast show listening is at 07:55 and you place your spot there, every day…. 07:55… then every day you would miss me! I will never hear your spot. The same is true of other people’s listening habits across the whole day. Although you want to hit the maximum people the maximum number of times, you don’t do that by JUST hitting the peaks!
So make sure your activity is across the day, and different times during those hours.
Ask your Sales Person for an Optimum Effective Schedule! Have a look here.
Of course I have an issue with the number of times people have to hear an ad to respond… since 3.5, or 3.25 or 4 are just made up numbers! But there is a general feel that, with a good offer, you start to get a good response when the OTH hits about 4 or 5. (Which is why it’s NOT good advertising to be on for just a week!
You HELP by making sure your spot ads tell people what you want them to do, and gives them a really good reason to do it!!
A tranny. The radio, not the boy.
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