<FONT COLOR="#FF0033"><B>Radio Rocks:</B></FONT> Funny radio ads are clichéd

Pushpinder Singh, founder, Saints and Warriors, and former national creative director, Ambience Publicis, provided an entirely new perspective on radio at the Radio Rocks event held on Friday in Mumbai. He spoke about the emergence of new radio in India.

Singh began with a series of assertions about the medium, one of which was that radio was, is and will always be an integral part of the communication mix. He said that we must not shy away from the fact that by ‘new radio’, we mean ‘FM radio’. In this particular medium, he said, it was imperative to get the viewpoints of the three parties, namely, the advertiser, the agency and the listener.

The advertisers are usually of the opinion that radio is a growing medium, but it definitely can’t be the lead medium in the media plan. So, they strike a 20-second deal with the channel and then ask the ad agency to create a campaign. Extending the brand’s personality to that of the medium’s is a huge concern area for the advertisers. Another barrier for the advertisers, according to Singh, is the production budgets. Since the FM channels quote low prices, advertisers prefer to pay less for the creatives as well.

Advertising agencies, on the other hand, struggle to make their ads look like ads and not get lost in the clutter. At the same time, they fail to incorporate the right amount of creativity in their ads. Most unfortunate, as Singh says, is the attitude of the agencies in sidelining radio and prioritising television.

Singh named a few ads, such as that for Close-Up, which used radio effectively with its ‘Kya aap Close-Up karte hai…’ song, which was pleasant to hear and easily recalled because people took 20 seconds to realise that it was an ad. Another radio commercial he cited was the ‘Navbharat Times’ ad for selling ad space in the newspaper. The agency translated a popular Hindi song into English and played it on radio. After amusing and annoying the listener for a while, the voiceover reinforces the opinion that the language in which a song is sung matters a lot, thus conveying the message that the paper in which you place your ad also matters.

Lastly, Singh touched upon the listeners’ opinions about radio advertising. According to him, listeners don’t want high decibel ads. Moreover, they perceive ads on radio as a nuisance. The humour quotient in ads is deteriorating because all ads are trying hard to be funny. Advertisements are becoming increasingly invisible because of similar channel ambience.

The future of radio advertising, Singh said, will be bright only if differentiated programming is created to connect with the audience. The more differential programming is created, the better it will be for ads to connect with the target. Creatives must be made less loud and more engaging.

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