Ode to a Luminous Legume

Every year around this time, I enjoy working with Pullman Mayor Glenn Johnson - a broadcast professor at the Edward R. Murrow School of Communications at Washington State University and longtime stadium voice of the WSU Cougars - as we collaborate on the new radio commercials for The National Lentil Festival, held here in Pullman the weekend before classes begin. I write the copy, Glenn provides his distinctive baritone pipes, and I mix down the final production. Over the years, our work has won awards from national and international festival organizations - but more importantly, has helped to draw thousands to enjoy the festivities.

As this year marks the festival's 21st anniversary, I thought it might be fun to play with the idea of what the typical 21-year-old does to celebrate the milestone birthday. This led to the use of the word squiffy, possibly for the first time on American radio.

A couple years ago I decided to give Tase T. Lentil a voice (mine, digitally manipulated), singing his own jingle, and we've trotted it out again for another run.

The Festival has long relied on local radio to get the word out. In recent years, radio stations in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and Montana also have been invited to air spots in exchange for receiving "lentil loot" (t-shirts, posters, wine glasses, lentils, recipes, etc.) to give away to their listeners, extending the campaign into regions that would not otherwise be reached.

Here are a couple of this year's spots.

This from NPR: "Radio Ads Are a Good Thing!"

It is SO enjoyable to hear Real Radio Ads (A Bud Light "Real Men of Genius" spot, no less!) airing on..."ad-free" National Public Radio.

All Things Considered, April 28, 2009 · Radio offers advertisers the last captive audience.

Radio ads are cheap to produce and buying airtime is inexpensive, too. You can blanket the airwaves with a slogan or jingle in a way you can't with TV.

Warren Berger's forthcoming book is Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life and Maybe Even the World.

Listen to Warren Berger's >enthusiastic evaluation of radio advertising (2 minutes, 50 seconds).

All of us in the radio advertising business ought to appreciate (and emulate) Mr. Berger's enthusiasm!

Thanks to Eric Rhoades for the tip!

Substance vs. Style

Here's an example of a radio commercial that from a distance sounds terrific. Positive, uplifting, even inspiring.

Until you listen to the actual words.

It might make you chuckle, but not without wincing a bit.

Disclaimer: this spot was part of a RAB Sales Meeting of the Month cassette from long ago. Can't remember who the original advertiser was. The last ten seconds of this commercial contained that real bank advertiser's pitch - if you want to do business with an institution that cares, switch to us.

Clever joke back then.

Perhaps not so much today.

Myers Auto Rebuild and Towing

It was neat to see my client, Myers Auto Rebuild and Towing, profiled in the March 23, 2009 issue of Radio Ink magazine!

Here's the link to my original post about their successful use of their thirty-second full-sing jingle, "The Client Whose Copy Never Gets Changed."

We should all be so fortunate to have clients like Steve and Theresa Myers.

Painting Pictures, Growing Biz with Words and Music

A few years ago one of my seasonal clients asked for some help creating a jingle for the family landscaping and nursery business.

At the time there were perhaps 15-20 local advertisers using jingles, many from the same original provider. The singers were different, of course. But after awhile, one begins to notice similarities. We wanted something different, new and fresh.

My search led me to Ralph Plank in Springfield, MO (near Branson - a great place to find musical talent). Impressed with his demos and friendly, collaborative attitude, we decided to hire him.

We wanted it all - a catchy tune, lyrics that painted vivid pictures, a powerful hook with a call to action, all wrapped in a style that would wear well over time (as the Myers Auto Rebuild jingle has done).

The hook we'd settled on even before engaging Ralph's services was "Get Growing." (My company produces a syndicated series of gardening features for radio by the same name, so the phrase was already top-of-mind; applying it to the jingle project made sense.) It combined the all-encompassing idea of growing things with an exhortation to act - get going! get growing!

Donna, my client, provided examples of the kinds of pictures she wanted listeners to be able to see in their minds' eye: thriving plants, attractive landscaping, water features, etc.

I got hung up on her insistence that the full name of the business be used, S Y G Nursery and Landscaping. "S-Y-G, Nur-ser-y" had rhyme and rhythm; the "and Landscaping" was just cumbersome. I lobbied for leaving it out, but was outvoted by the client, who in the end pays the bill.

Surprisingly, Ralph didn't seem to think that singing the full name of the business would be a problem at all.

He was right. I was wrong.

When I heard the jingle for the first time, I immediately fell in love with it, no qualifications. It was perfect.


The jingle hit the airwaves and almost immediately the client started getting great feedback. Awareness went up, followed by increases in traffic and sales. Everything that's supposed to happen with a good ad campaign.

Today, after four years of steady airplay from spring to fall, this perky jingle still sounds fresh and inviting, in perfect harmony with the nature of the client's business.

When it comes to painting vivid, enduring images on the canvas of human imagination, Radio is unsurpassed.

The Client Whose Ad Copy Never Gets Changed

Consistency is a great virtue in advertising, all other factors being equal.

Most of my advertising clients have annual contracts that call for being on the air every day. This degree of exposure usually requires regular changes of copy, to maintain a healthy balance between repetition and freshness.

But I have one client, a mom-and-pop automotive body shop and towing service, that's been running the same ad every week, every month, every year...for well over a decade.

Yes, from a servicing standpoint it's almost an embarrassment.

We laugh about it from time to time.

All the way to the bank.

Because Myers Auto Rebuild and Towing also happens to occupy the enviable Top Rung of their category ladder. By a mile.



A dozen years ago, Steve and Theresa Myers met with a jingle company rep we'd brought into town and decided they'd move forward on a custom "musical image" for their shop.

If you've ever worked with jingle salespeople, you know that they often follow an interview format not unlike the RAB's "client needs analysis." They meet for 30-45 minutes with each prospect, asking lots of questions in an effort to document the advertiser's niche, his USP, or at least what HE thinks are his strong selling points. Then they turn these answers over to a lyricist, who presumably will distill from these notes the poetry that will woo buyers out of the WOOdwork.

It has been my experience that many of these well-meaning efforts end rather poorly. in an attempt to feed back to the client in one 30-second song, everything about the business that came up in the interview, the result is an unfocused exercise in musical chest-thumping.

In the Myers' case, the first draft was faxed to them for approval within a week of their interview. Theresa called me, a tone of concern in her voice, to ask if I would stop by to review what the jingle writer had come up with. My response merely confirmed what their gut had already told them.

It was a mess.

The tune was catchy. The singer was perfect. But the message was deficient, to put it kindly.

I quickly offered to rewrite the lyrics.

We checked with the singer to see if he had any objection to this. He didn't; he just wanted to sing something and get paid.

I've always enjoyed writing rhyming copy. The challenge here was to keep the narrative straightforward and focused, to convey when and why someone would call Myers Auto Rebuild, and what they could expect as a result. The completed story meshed nicely with the music, resulting in a :30-second full-sing jingle that has enjoyed remarkable longevity.

When a few weeks after the jingle first hit the airwaves Steve and Theresa received a telephone call from the owner of a competitor's body shop, complaining that his kids were singing their jingle, they knew they had a winner.

And they haven't been inclined to change their copy ever since.

Radical? You decide. Listen to the Myers Auto Rebuild Jingle.