Tony Hertz, international Creative Director for 14 years at McCann-Erikson and internationally acclaimed radio writer, director and teacher who has done award winning stints in at least 3 continents is known around the globe for creating the most visually imaginative radio commercials. He has a number of silver and gold awards to his credit, and is the only person in the world with both Yellow and Black D&AD – Design and Art Direction – Radio Pencils, which are awarded by the British educational nonprofit to those who have achieved excellence in design and advertising.
On December 10, 2015, Tony Hertz conducted his world famous workshop, “The 7 Secrets of Creative Radio Advertising” at the Movenpick Hotel Karachi. Organized by PAS – Pakistan Advertisers Society, the event was held in association with PBA – Pakistan Broadcasters Association – and leading FM radio stations namely City FM 89, Apna Karachi FM 107, Hum FM 106.2, Radio 1 FM 91, Hot FM 105, Samaa FM 107.4 and Radio Awaz Network.
Coaching advertising and marketing specialists at the event, Hertz started off with describing human relationship with sound and how different sounds affect us below the conscious level. Yet, radio advertising is hardly tackled creatively and marketing communication is largely visual with advertisers shouting out to potential customers using details and information that does the opposite of engaging them. Rather what needs to be kept in mind is that radio has the unique capacity to engage emotions and power to evoke personal visual images. With this, he narrated the 7 secrets of creating commercials for radio that will make them likeable and impactful. According to the creative radio specialist, it is important to look for the particular feeling that can be communicated by the brand in the commercial.
Also, when starting to write a radio ad, it helps to do it with the assistance of a picture or video describing its details or adding details to it that presents the scenario in a personal conversation oriented manner between the person writing the ad copy, the brand and ONE listener. Keeping one listener out of thousands in mind helps to keep the conversation focused and engaging. Hertz also stressed upon the importance of presenting the radio commercial in a way to the client that they can visualize it with the different characters present in it using human relationships to define them. Last but not the least, he stressed the need to ‘produce with passion’ if one wants to make memorable radio ads. Following is a bulleted list