Daniel Marino

Bad Radio Advertising

Why do most radio ads seem really cheesy. I’m not pretending to be an expert, but if I’m the one they’re advertising to, and I think their ad is bad, then someone isn’t doing their job right. Do these people think we all have low IQs? Do they think we’re stupid and need cheesy scripts, scenarios, and jingles to hook us. If anything, a cheesy/bad radio ad turns me off from the product its advertising.

I will admit, that I often get bad radio jingles stuck in my head such as “Call 1-800-EAST-WEST (all you gotta do is call), Call 1-800-EAST-WEST (yeah yeah)!” In this case the advertiser has done their job, they’ve got this idiotic tune stuck in my head. However, it has backfired on them. I will probably never buy their product or service because their radio ad haunts me in my sleep, and for this, I can never forgive them.

Some radio ads just don’t make sense or have a completely unreal scenario. Now a word of caution: it’s not the unreal scenario that makes the radio advertisement bad – if it makes me laugh or the deal is so good that I can look past the bad advertising, then I don’t have a problem. But if you have an unreal scenario, and everything else involved with the ad is a waste of 30 seconds, then there’s a problem, and someone should be fired. Let’s examine the radio ad, “Police” by the MASS Dept. of Public Health.

First of all, am I suppose to believe the people getting pulled over are in their late teens or are young adults. They sound like they’re in their late twenties/early thirties. And I’ve never heard such cheesy conversation between young adults. Oh yeah, they don’t even sound like they’ve been drinking. So far we’re off to a bad start.

I’ve never been pulled over for drinking, but I have been pulled over for speeding. The cop in this radio ad sounds pretty friendly considering he just pulled over a bunch of (potentially underage) kids for drinking and driving. I wish the cops that pulled me over for speeding were half as friendly as this cop. If I were that cop, I’d be trying to scare the living daylights out of those kids. Get those punks out of the car and see if they can even walk straight. Don’t pretend to be their buddy, which brings me to my final point.

What’s with this “I’ve been trailing you for three miles…”? Three miles is a long distance. Why would a cop wait so long to pull someone over. It shouldn’t take more than a mile, if that, to figure out if he should pull someone over–especially if he thinks they’ve been drinking and could potentially put themselves or others at risk.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve heard a good radio advertisement. It can’t be a dying industry because there are more radio stations than ever, and they need funding somehow. Maybe its a dying art? It’s just that I listen to this stuff and I feel like I could do better with 30 seconds of air time than what I hear now.