The easiest thing to cut from a tight commercial script
When it comes to voicing radio and tv ads, most make their way to me via an agency or production house, so I rarely have any say in the writing of the script.
However, when an advertiser works directly with me and they want (or sometimes need) script advice, I’m only too happy to help.
Today a client came to me with what aspired to be a 15 second radio commercial. Except that it wasn’t. Even if I were to read it at the speed of chipmunk, it was still way longer than 15 seconds.
The easiest and, I think, most obvious cut to make to a script is usually the phone number.
For starters, there are ten words (approximately 3-4 seconds) freed up right away!
“But, but, but…. we neeeeed the phone number”.
NO! No phone number.
Unless your business has an extremely memorable number, ideally enveloped in a catchy jingle, just NO!
Why not?
Because nobody is going to remember ten forgettable numbers as well as the message you are trying to convey in your ad.
Sure I reckon we can probably all remember an ear worm of a pizza phone number from our childhood but ‘oh four bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla’ – not so much.
I’d suggest it is far more useful and effective to repeat name of the business. And if there is room, mention the website. Listeners are clever. They know how to search those interwebs to find you. And by all means, put that phone number all over your website so that those phones start ringing.
