MEMO
To: All Advertising Reps of KADS Radio Station
From: Dirk Cutter, Owner of KADS
Re: Radio Advertisements

Have any of you ever been driving around with the radio on (tuned to our station, of course), working your way through the daily grind, and while you’re sitting there, aging during a lull in traffic, you feel that something – not quite sure what it is – is really pissing you off? You might actually get to a point where you look haphazardly around your environment to try and detect the source of the irritant, which is controlling you emotionally like someone jabbing you with a chopstick. Then your brain snaps you back to “now” and you realize that an obnoxious radio commercial, from the very station that gives you a paycheck, is pounding you into this state of malaise.

It would appear that most of you have forgotten the initial ad-spot directives outlined in your employee handbooks as quickly as a 4th grader on summer break purges his multiplication tables, so it’s time for a re-cap. Print this memo, take it home, and read it aloud to your dog if need be, but whatever it is y’all need to do, make sure this is concrete by tomorrow morning.

There are three basic ad concepts in radio that have been completely plundered, and need to disappear:

1. The Clever Banter Between Two People. This commercial is built on the premise of two people having a casual conversation that was seemingly recorded by some phantom means, and simultaneously broadcasted through our bandwidth. Theoretically, the listener has no idea that this conversation was crafted by actors in our little studio. The most popular derivative of the Banter Method, the Telephone Call, is overused, and is clogging the airwaves of the nation. Note: this pointless drivel would never be exchanged between two sane people and we’re fools for expecting people to believe it. When was the last time you explained the mission statement and store hours of some company you’ve recently patronized to anyone?

Two side-points on the Banter Method:
A. Lately, the shtick of the Telephone Call has started to plummet. Most of these ads sound as if some telemarketing scriptwriter straight out of a 2000-phone line boiler room wrote them. Let’s just stop doing these right now.
B. Nobody, and I mean nobody¸ really believes that two people are having the sort of conversation that we’re trying to pitch, no matter what the background noise is in the ad. So let’s cut out the ladies talking about incredible department store sales while they’re having lunch in some noisy café, and let’s stop doing the two guys discussing the remarkable achievements regarding one another’s hair loss/gain at some sporting event. Reports tell me that these sound bites are so over-used, morning commuters are projectile-vomiting lattes before they can fumble for the stereo controls in their SUV to stop the noise. End point: the Clever Banter isn’t so clever anymore. Figure something else out.

2. The Voice-Over. Frequently delivered by the owner of some local merchant outfit, this commercial is supposed to deliver truth and solidity because we’re broadcasting the “word” from the proprietor’s mouth. Some might say it sounds cheap and scripted, but no one really despises a good old-fashioned American shop owner who touts his family business while John Philip Sousa tunes warble in the background. Except me, of course. This gig is trite and over-done.

3. The Shoutcast. Hysterical, chaotic screaming from some “shout person” is the modus operandi here. Pretending to do the “live remote” from a car dealership, while howling about the amazing deals, forces people to do one thing: roll the dial on to someone who isn’t filling the airwaves with pointless noise. Some of the zealous reps have expanded this method and gone as far as dubbing the Helicopter sound bite to make it appear as if we have a shout person in the air, covering the wild savings going on at XYZ car lot , but no one really believes that KADS owns a Bell Jet Helicopter, and therefore, we’re not going to reap any more revenue out of the deal, no matter who you try to fool. Listener surveys tell me that the Shouting Helicopter Delivery sounds more like a frantic pre-ditch radio transmission from a Blackhawk going down in Mogadishu than a commercial. Let’s put the Helicopter sound bite in the deep, dark basement with Restaurant and Sports Event.
These three ad types currently make up the advertising foundation of KADS, our objective is to avoid these clichéd musings, and branch out to better please the aural senses of our listeners. We want people to remember our advertising customers, but we don’t want them to recall KADS when they’re wiping a half-digested latte off the dash of their Lincoln Navigator.

When the hammer comes down, I bet those of us who purchased “B-52’s” albums will be scrutinized more than those who didn’t; you know, as far as the getting into Heaven/Promised Land part. I think the souls up there are voting against any kind of noise like that again.