I have a theory about writing advertising for radio, one I’m pretty sure no one will buy into, or even agree with, but it is my theory and by gum I will stick to it… ((CLEARS THROAT))
Because this idea runs counter to everything I’ve learned about how advertising works, this theory, which is mine is the following:
“Radio may very well be, the ONLY advertising medium where one-off ads are not a bad idea at all for the right client.”
Wait, what?? I know, I know, it is branding heresy. It goes against everything I have ever said and done, but I think it might be true.
I mean, who’d suggest stringing together a bunch of one-off print ads and calling it a campaign? Yet alone charge a client for it… but wait…
In radio, if you have a good idea, then throw the idea (theme or usual branding) of a campaign out the window and let it get squashed by a passing dinosaur.
I have done it myself for a bedding company, running weird, one off campaigns that have no sense of a “campaign structure or plan”.
Yet there are other examples out there in the real world too… remember the “Real American Heroes,” campaign – they are brilliant one-off pieces that stand alone – but they do sort-of have a kind of campaign structure.
But, when a client insists that every radio campaign has the exact same structure, every SINGLE TIME! Then I say no to that.
I like the odd, the different, the stand-alone one-off ad works better at getting attention than a branding campaign – and I would prefer to write these any day, for any client – as long as they believe in my theory that is.
