Smart Ideas
Annoying, and proud of it!
They’re ubiquitous. And controversial. But do these radio spots draw customers?
By Victoria Harrow
Smart Business Akron/Canton | June 2000
At a recent luncheon, the topic of radio advertising prompted a lively discussion. The consensus: Controversial radio spots generate a reaction. Question is, do they attract, or repel, potential customers?
Referring to the Clarke Automotive “Mr. Big Volume” pitch, an advertising colleague complains that the announcer is screaming so loud that she’s forced to change the station, only to hear the same commercial there. There’s no escape unless you turn the radio off, she says, but even then, “you can’t get the guy’s voice out of your head.”
“Even if I were in the market for a new Ford, I’m not sure I’d go there to buy one simply because of their obnoxious ad. Clarke Ford is by no means alone in this genre — there are many other audibly offensive radio commercials. The thing most fail to realize is that people tend to pay attention to a whisper and tend to shut out the noise,” she says.
But noise isn’t the only problem. Opinionated spots are likely the most obnoxious to some listeners.
Citing Bob Serpentini’s “American and proud of it!” car dealership spots, one consumer declares, “He uses his commercials as a soapbox for right-wing homilies, and there are some folks who won’t set foot on his lot because of that.”
Several car dealership spots fall into the “OQ” (Obnoxious Quotient) category, says Joe Clifford Faust, public relations director and copywriter for Wern Rausch Locke Advertising Inc., a full-service advertising agency in Canton. But the approach is effective, he says, because name recognition is the name of the game and the ads implant the company’s name and image in the listener’s subconscious.
“The obnoxious stuff works because while people hate it, it cuts through the clutter and gets noticed. You can’t ignore it,” he says. “That is the twilight zone of cause and effect, where there is no such thing as bad publicity.”
Chris Eck, president of Eck & Associates Public Relations Inc. in Akron, disagrees with the theory that any attention is good attention.
“Companies have to do something memorable or unique in their public communications to create an image for themselves, and some do this very well, “ he says. “Unfortunately, some companies forget that marketing that annoys or offends is just bad business. Carving a market niche and establishing an identity cannot be achieved efficiently by offending or annoying segments of the population.”
Bob Clancy, creative director at Akron-based Hitchcock Fleming & Associates Inc., agrees.
“Good radio needn’t be annoying. It can be funny, outrageous and charming. Great radio is poignant, memorable, and never boring, repetitious or full of a business owner’s bloated ego,” he says.
As for the soapbox category, Clancy — who also teaches radio copywriting at The University of Akron —- notes that the Serpentini commercial and Ron Trzcinski’s Original Mattress Factory commercials have something in common.
“They ‘do their own thing’ without the help of advertising professionals, and it’s the big cheese himself doing the commercials,” he says.
Explaining why he chooses to write and narrate his own spots for Original Mattress Factory, Trzcinski says that when he initially consulted with a small advertising agency, it wanted to create radio ads that would sell mattresses. But Trzcinski wanted to be Frank Sinatra.
“I wanted to do it my way, but they said, ‘Well, that won’t sell.’ But for what I wanted to do, it had to be our story and not some hype. If it’s not us or if it violates our value system, I won’t do it,” he says. “We don’t do the typical things, like try to get you to run in and buy or you’ll miss your chance.
“There’s no sense of urgency. We’re not trying to have people remember us. We’re just trying to tell our story, provide information and help people make the right mattress purchase.”
Money is another motivation for doing his own thing, Trzcinski says, rationalizing that he’d rather spend his dollars on air time than on creative advertising.
“Our business is based on the fact that we try to provide the best value at the lowest cost. Therefore, we must master the quality and minimize the costs.”
So Trzcinski writes his own commercials, about three a month, and feeds his compositions to a wordsmith who edits his drafts into 60-second advertisements. Trzcinski bases his bits on actual events that occur in his stores, such as anecdotes about a customer’s elated reaction to his low prices.
Trzcinski then narrates his own commercials, which he says are “factual and cute,” at a radio station or recording studio.
“For the most part, we get very nice comments on our commercials, and we sell literally hundreds of thousands of people a year,” he says.
“But there might be a lot of people who hate my commercials who I never hear from, who might say, ‘He’s boring,’ or ‘He’s obnoxious,’ or whatever.”
Trzcinski does recall a customer who visited his factory and — unaware that she was talking to the owner, despite his monogrammed shirt — said she disliked Trzcinski’s commercials. But she admitted that the spots stuck in her subconscious, so she came there to buy a bed, he says.
“So, I would say that the approach appeals to enough people, and the ads work well enough to continue them, because our approach is to be totally honest and never offend anybody.”
But Trzcinski acknowledges that when he runs special messages on Veterans Day or Christmas in which he comments on patriotism, benevolence or family values, he sometimes receives negative feedback.
“We might hear from six or 10 people who say, ‘Gee that was such a nice message.’ But we may also get somebody that says, ‘Look, don’t be doing that stuff, leave the world alone and don’t talk about God on the radio!’ But it’s a message that truly comes from my heart and it just seems like it needs to be said because this world is so screwed up — so I try to get people to think.”
Faust emphasizes that if the intent is to draw customers, caution must be taken in how a company draws attention to itself. The trick is in distinguishing what may or may not offend listeners.
“I once was writing creative radio for a dealership and was trying to take them away from screaming, ‘Buy! Buy! Buy!’ I did one spot that got a lot of attention by being topical, but they dropped it when one — that’s right, one — customer complained about the objectionable language in the spot. Horrors, what did I say? The word ‘nude,’” Faust confides. “Hence, the obnoxious approach is a good way to get attention without being patently offensive.”
Eck assures that standing on a soapbox is an advertising approach to be avoided at all costs.
“Modern car buyers find that stuff offensive,” says Eck, referring to the auto dealer whose commercials imply that people who don’t buy American cars are less than patriotic.
“I’m sure he’s a nice guy and maybe he can give you a great deal on a car. But I’ll never know. I change the station as soon as I hear his voice.”
Unfortunately, Serpentini was unavailable for comment.
How to reach: Wern Rausch Locke Advertising Inc., (330)
493-8860; Hitchcock Fleming & Associates Inc., (330) 376-2111; Eck & Associates Public Relations Inc., (330) 869-8810; Original Mattress Factory, (330) 928-9944
