RAFF RADIO COMMERCIALS

Speciality Production

At a creative-approval meeting, the (delightful) Marketing Director of the Music & Arts Centers laughed: "The best part about working with you guys is that it's my job to rein you in, instead of push you forward." Recalling this unusual compliment, we decided to select for your pleasure (principally) not our most "prestigious" sounding work, but some of our wildest.

After all, a commercial's first job, which makes the other jobs possible, is to get and keep attention, to leave you thinking about it after it ends. We devised the expression "subvert the spot set" to describe work that blows the commercials around it away – clears the air, creates a space for itself – and engages the mind."

In almost all cases these are merely isolated spots within campaigns spanning months or years. All have aired. These non-broadcast quality samples are protected by international copyright and intellectual property law.

Our client was tired of educating prospects who then went to Wal-Mart to make their final purchases. We went for the jugular. This spot has seen him grow from just one store. It gets listener requests on the radio, and still cycles on the air in his markets!

We have learned, through many years' joyful local and national work all over this category, that some people really do love their vacuum cleaners. Our best customers appreciate, or are at least intrigued by the - shall we say -powerful draw of this attachment.

Very large average tickets in unconventional categories often require variable-message radio selling and some complexity in funneling and conversion. Here, we cap another cycle with a reasoned call to action. Again our call centers were overwhelmed by surprising copy and exquisite delivery – without a single instance of tired, two-bit call-to-action words such as "now!"

When an exasperated pool hall owner gave us carte blanche to attract a young, up-scale weeknight male and female clientele to his off-the-beaten path location, we positioned hard - against Television – and created a 'social scene' which drew business from four counties.

Radio is theater of the mind. The crazy, multi-year "Imagination" campaign had a sort of cult status, always getting attention and attracting new business.

Sometimes a complex sales message can be made memorable with a little research, an acknowledgement of the listeners' intelligence, and an impish word.Should you be tempted to question the tangible value of decades of production and voice-over experience or even the fancy large-diaphragm microphones we employ, remember that your commercial bounces off geostationary satellites, passes through processors, compressors and transmitters, floats through varying climatological conditions to a radio receiver, and is re-converted to sound on any number of dusty speakers. It all pays off when a word like poop emerges with precisely the desired effect.

When a popular conservative news site wanted to boost holiday business at their online store, we had no choice but to cut out the middleman.

Independent music stores have faced nearly insurmountable challenges in the last decades, from chain-owned superstores to conglomerations affecting distribution, to click-and-mortar bookstores, to online retailers, to iTunes and Napster and innumerable forms of illegal downloading and file-sharing. On a shoestring budget, we took our cue from Rock & Roll, setting a no-holds barred, wildly independent, in-your-face attitude from the very beginning. Almost 20 years later we are proud to say our client is still in business and on the air.

How best to depict a campaign which spans numerous objectives, hundreds of spots and four times again as many radio stations? We seek always to speak from the heart.

Success in large-scale communications can sometimes be measured by the caliber of individuals who are willing to lend their voice to the effort.

In a decades-long, highly fruitful effort to find new ways to position a successful local restaurant against polished, encroaching chains, we sought first to depict the pride, joy, and occasional 'controlled chaos' of authentic cuisine.

Through hundreds of spots and initiatives, an aesthetic emphasizing local credibility has brought us in and out of 'the kitchen' many times. Powerful testimonial sequences arethe result of lots of careful, friendly work

A testament to the unlimited powers of radio salesmanship, this micro-campaign ran day-specific in tight lunch-hour windows on

Monday: Tuesday: Wednesday: Thursday: Friday:

Listening on any of a handful of stations in the quad-state I-81 corridor, charmed customers drove an hour or more to taste the soups that will change your life, frequently expressing gratitude – for the commercials!

Radio's raw reach-power and creative potential can meet almost any marketing challenge. Sometimes all it takes to capture the hearts of new customers – in this case, computer programmers - is a good story, and sometimes all it takes to conquer the Dark Side is courage. In the end, of course, we couldn't stem the "River of Books" (Amazon) but we bought some time.

A good approach to low-frequency campaigns is to force the listener to perk up and "turn it up" in the first few moments of a spot. Frankly, we are most likely to "turn it up" when we're not quite sure what the heck is going on! In most categories we know our job is not to create a need, but rather, to bring the prospect to your door with a smile on his face.

In a world of fake smiles and cookie-cutter creative, penetrating authenticity can come from the strangest places. Here, our star talent Molly Flowers evokes disease, psychosis, and mass murder, resolving the insanity with a playful “end of take” laugh. Customers say they can relate. Delighted to experience and be let in on the act, they show it by circumventing “last point of reference” advertising (and the competition,) looking the client up by name rather than category.