We’ve all heard it; attention spans are growing shorter and audiences are more fickle than ever.
The crunch to make everything more easily digestible, smaller or quicker is being felt in the advertising and media industry as much as anywhere else. From 5 second radio ads to 3 second video pre-rolls, we’re trying to do more with less, with varying results.
Talent-read live reads - when a host reads a script about a client’s brand, product or service, live on-air - are a staple of radio advertising. But they suck. Listeners can hear the wooden delivery, they pick up the “I’m reading this off a piece of paper but trying to make it sound candid and genuine” vibe, and they switch off, mentally if not literally. Yet we persevere because radio is the closest thing we have to weaponized word-of-mouth.
Enter ADversations, a long-form piece of audio featuring two people talking about a client. Sound familiar? Isn’t that just a longer ad? Well, yes. But not quite as off-putting and hopefully, by design, much more entertaining.
The idea for ADversations came from the ads I’d hear in podcasts. The best comedy podcasts don’t just read a 30-second script and hurry to their next topic, they luxuriate in the absurdity of it all, leaning into the *wink wink* nature of an ad clanging into their content like a dropped spanner. They joke, they laugh, they go on tangents and weave the client into the fabric of the show instead of sweeping the commercials under the rug like something to be ashamed of. Next thing you know, you’ve been listening to an ad for Casper mattresses for 7 minutes.
With ADversations, selected clients have the opportunity to buy out blocks of airtime in an ad break (e.g. 4 x 30 sec ads) and deploy real* people to talk about their product for an extended period of time (4 x 30 sec ads = 2 minutes uninterrupted). Two *comedians - cast for their affinity with the product or their demographic match with the network/show in which the edited ADversation would be broadcast - are briefed on the product, given a rough outline or notes, and set loose in a recording studio to talk freely under the direction of a creative. We’d record for about 20 minutes and then splice the best bits together into edited package. Unlike traditional live reads, they’re electric, enjoyable and memorable, like eavesdropping on a real conversation should be.
ADversations represent a premium tier for clients to cut-through the noise of the medium and make an impact with true commercial content for buzzworthy products like new-release movies, album launches and sale events/limited time offers. They also represent a premium stream of revenue for the network. Win, win.
Female talent for relevant products/audience/programming.
Male talent for relevant products/audience/programming.