Radio

Recently I was asked to do a programme for BBC Radio Four in their 'Archive' series about the history of radio advertising in the UK. It was broadcast on Saturday 14th March. Here is a piece I wrote and which appeared in a different form on the BBC Magazine website:

Whether we like it or not, advertising is an important part of radio, without it a significant part of our broadcasting landscape would not exist. In fact, many of us remember a time when it didn’t.

A radio jingle heard on a breakfast show can stay with you all day whether you like it or not. I’ve been listening to lots of them preparing for ‘Radio Sales’, this week’s Archive on 4. It took an intensive diet of Abba’s Greatest Hits to rid my brain of the Ovaltinies jingle, a too memorable example of the genre. Sean Street of Bournemouth University says that anybody of a certain age will still be able to sing the League of Ovaltinies jingle. “I think it’s probably the most successful advertising jingle of all time.”

There are fads and fashions in all industries and there are those in radio advertising today who say that the age of the jingle has passed. Andrew Ingram, co-author of ‘Better Radio Advertising’ told me, “Jingles have almost been outlawed in advertising at the moment. It's a slightly dirty word. Jingles are fantastically powerful, they do make you remember things. The Germans have a lovely expression – ‘ohrwurm’ - which translates as ‘earworm’ - the idea that something goes into your ear and wriggles around in there and you have to use a hook to get it out. Jingles are like that, the most famous one on these islands is ‘You can’t get quicker than a Kwik Fit Fitter’.

But top ad man Tim Delaney says, “..they are kind’ve the lowest form of life” and Nick Angell who produces commercials tells me “the jingle is doh! - don’t mention the jingle because they’re very passé”. However, jingle lovers, all is not lost. Along comes veteran DJ Tony Blackburn on his white charger, “Anyone who says jingles have had their day are completely mad, the jingle does work very effectively. The fact that I can’t remember many commercials that we play nowadays but I can remember a jingle from the sixties that told me to start my day with Weetabix must say something.”

So what do the ad men use instead? Tony Hertz came here from the U.S. in the early seventies to bring an American perspective to radio ads here and says now they use ‘sonic brand triggers’, which are essentially jingles. The Intel sound and British Airways use of opera music by Delibes are good examples of what he means. Producer Nick Angell thinks these devices are much posher, “we use carefully crafted or specially selected music to underpin a script or provide some sort of attachment to the product.”

Early in my career on commercial radio in Australia I remember how jingles for soft drinks, petrol and toothpaste competed with the station’s own identification jingles. They were uplifting punctuations in any show and the best ones were arranged to suit the time of day as well as the product. ‘You’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent’, ‘things go better with coke’ and ‘go well, go Shell’ remain with me to this day.

Another tool used by the ad men is comedy and some of the best commercials using comedy were for Hamlet cigars (before they were outlawed in 2005). Ad man Tim Delaney likes to use comedy because it brings perspective to a product. He used it to award winning effect in a commercial for Philips in 1982 which used the talents of Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones poked fun at the British admiration for everything Japanese in electronics at that time. Remember the man who had a Hoki Koki 2000 television and wanted a videocaster with all the functions? He was shown a Philips (Firrips).

But some say that jokes are only funny the first time you hear them and so people wouldn’t be bothered listening to them again, that’s the view of Benny Brown, Radio Luxembourg DJ. If the ‘Firrips’ ad and others are anything to go by that isn’t so. Even Peter Sellers did some radio commercials. He played all the roles in a very funny ‘Mastermind’ sketch for Camping Gaz, including Magnus Magnusson and contestants like Major Faucet Mildew. And the highly praised American series of commercials called ‘Real Men of Genius’ for Bud Lite beer, uses both comedy and jingles.

Radio commercials can lift your spirits with singalong jingles, they can make you laugh and they can drive you mad with lists of phone numbers and website addresses. If you don’t mind being shouted at, you are well catered for. As in all artistic endeavours there are very few masterpieces, if I can use that term here, but you can’t say they don’t try to be noticed or aspire to greatness.

A lot of money is spent on making the ads, even more on placing them on radio stations, so it seems reasonable to assume that they make business sense. No one admits to having bought something because they heard it advertised but surely they must otherwise what is it all for?