The Industry

    Phew. What a whirlwind. These past couple days have been an exciting whirlwind, but still whirlwind-ish. I thought today I would go back to some tips for the radio world and so I dove into my school binders and flipped through all of the doodles (I have come to the conclusion that I have no drawing/doodling talent) and I am going to share with you some of my advertising notes. Veterans and newbies alike these are some fantastic things to keep in mind when writing copy.

Words. They are our tool. I have said it before and I will say it again, we do not have the pleasure of having pictures to elaborate our points or paint the scene for us, it is all up to our words. Our words can be electric and more powerful then any image. When writing copy we should always be thinking of the “best” word or the vivid words. The words that invoke these emotions or portray an image. On the same track, silence is an option we have that can stop people immediately and invoke images beyond what a television crew can re-create.   

Cliches. I am guilty of cliches more then anyone. My copy teacher had to drill it into my brain a couple times. I fell victim to the “you can be like Bob too” and “pick up yours today”. Now when I hear a cliche on the radio I cringe. They are cliches because they have been used so much. The goal, as I have talked about before, is to make your clients ad break through the existing clutter out there and if your using phrases that have been used so many times before, you’re not doing your job! Think about that! Haha.

Redundancies. I struggle with verbal diarrhea from time to time and I am the same with the written word. I forget that listeners aren’t stupid and don’t need 5 words to explain something that can be said in one. It’s redundant to say “few and far between” when you can just say “few”. This goes back to picking the best words. 

Connectors. Words like: Well, so, but, anyway, anyhow, and… these are all connectors that are used to connect sentences or thoughts. However, these are rarely needed in an ad. A good ad should sound like a normal person talking but in a condensed fashion. By eliminating some of these words you will notice that it will not change the sound of your commercial… if anything it will make it sound cleaner and it will probably have a better flow.

I have to give credit to Kat Stewart for this post. She is a fantastic copy teacher and if anyone can drill this information into your head it’s Kat… and I mean that in the best way possible.

My advice. Write your ad and then go back through it and look for Cliches, Redundancies and Connectors and see if your language is active or passive. Active will engage the listener, painting that picture or bringing in the emotions… passive will be just that, listeners won’t take them in. 

Want to add to this list? Leave it in the comments below

- Mitch