How to write an ad for radio

I will assume you already know these 3 things:
1. What you are advertising (product, service)
2. The purpose of your ad (i.e. to sell product, promote new product, build brand awareness, counter a negative perception of your business, etc.)
3. The key features or benefits you want to sell

Radio stations will often offer you their own ad-writing services. You might prefer to find your own writer because the quality of radio ad writing is (judging by many radio ads) pretty low. It will probably work out the same cost or cheaper if you use your own writer anyway.

What's your story?

To write an ad for the radio or to play in the background of a webpage, you have to start with a creative concept ... a story you will tell about your product.

The first factor in choosing a story is: is it authentic? Any product can lend itself to a creative story but you must be sure your audience will buy that story.

You must also be sure they will find the story useful. Resellers, for example, want to hear about how they can sell your product to their customers. Consumers want to know how it will improve their lives or experiences. Clients (B2B) want to hear how you will make them more profitable or efficient.

The reason you should use a story is that it is one of the only ways you can engage your audience. At least in Western society, we communicate by way of stories. Think about teachers you've had in the past. Whether trying to pass on an idea or a fact, I bet the teachers who really taught you something were the ones who told you a story. I will never forget my 11th grade science teacher or the story he told us about the soldier with the giant tapeworm (platyhelminthes - see? I still remember the scientific name).

The other thing is to be entertaining wherever possible, obviously within the bounds of good taste. Funeral directors and cancer foundations can't really go for hilarity in a radio ad. However, they can still stir emotion in the listener and they usually do - which, in a different way, is still being entertaining.

Ad writing toolbox

Finding the right story for your product is the hard part. The script writing should be easy once you've found a story that is 1. authentic 2. useful and 3. compelling. Start with these elements:

1. Scenario (at the gym, in a restaurant, a phone call)
2. Characters (gender, names, voices, ages, personalities)
3. A short list of key concepts or facts that must be communicated about the product
4. A decision on how you want your listeners to contact you (no more than two methods and preferably one, e.g. phone number OR web address)

Now you have everything you need to write a script for a great radio ad. Don't lose site of the key benefits you want to communicate or the need to entertain your listeners.

The top 7 mistakes of radio ad writers

1. Cheesy or corny scripts
2. Unpleasant sound effects (I always turn down the volume when the Domino's puff crust pizza ad comes on - the one with the guy talking with his mouth full. Yuck.)
3. Unrealistic scenarios
4. Copycatting (unoriginality)
5. Offensive scripts (e.g misogyny)
6. False and inane 'conversations' that sound like the performer is reading enthusiastically off a product brochure
7. Musical jingles that try to take themselves seriously

Next time, I will post about writing on-hold scripts. In the meantime, listen to commercial radio for a while and try to work out what you love and hate about the ads you hear - then use that information!