How to Make Great Promos...

Promos on radio or TV aim to capture the essence of the programme, the series, or the event they're promoting, in a unique and creative way; a way that makes you sit up and take notice... the makes you want to tune in... that makes you interested in it, whatever it’s for.

Some promos can be pretty straight forward. They show or play clips, maybe good ones, and tell you when it’s on. Functional, but not that creative.

Some promos tease, and allow your mind to do the work and fill in the blanks. More creative.

And some have clips, teasing and include an added narrative or theme. Now here’s where it gets good. The creative possibilities start to open up.

One of the best examples of this I’ve seen is for Channel 4’s coverage of the Paralympics which are about to get underway this week in London.

The use of training and competitive footage shows what the viewer has in store. Nicely done.

But the added ‘storylines’ in the middle are a touch of genius, giving context and perspective to the whole piece. It makes it personal. It makes it human.

And then the text. It feels like a Hollywood trailer... only less clichéd, because you know it’s actually true.

“Forget everything you thought you knew about strength.

Forget everything you thought you knew about humans.

It’s time to do battle.

Meet The Superhumans.”

Meet The Superhumans – just a fantastic tag line to the whole thing. Positioning it almost above the Olympics in terms of human endeavour, simply because of the feats involved.

And finally the music. Being a ‘music, sound & content’ company, we take particular interest in the selection of these kind of things! So hats off to the team at Channel 4 for selecting Public Enemy – Harder Than You Think. Powerful, gritty, triumphant and positioning the coverage as more 'alternative' to that of the BBC’s Olympic recent coverage (superb as it was).

So, enjoy one of the best promos on TV right now...

"Difficult Is Worth Doing"

If you’re a programmer working in commercial radio anywhere in the world, how many times have you either sat in a focus group or listened to results of a research project where listeners are dissatisfied with the quality of commercials that your station runs?

Many listeners see commercials as a necessary evil and the ‘opportunity cost’ of listening to commercial radio, but few listeners extol the virtues of many commercials.

In a changing mediascape, broadcasters continue to face challenges to make commercials connect with their audience. In a world where ad avoidance is rife, how do you make the spots more compelling? Many radio programmers pretend there’s nothing you can do about what’s in the ad breaks… but imagine a world where you could influence that, perhaps by having stronger relationships with some key clients or advertisers?

The reason I mention this is tonight in the UK, Channel 4 and Honda are staging the first ever live advert on British TV. At 8:10pm, 19 skydivers will jump out of a plane over Madrid and attempt to spell out the word ‘Honda’. They have 3 minutes 20 seconds to do it. It ties in nicely with their “Difficult Is Worth Doing” strapline. This, to me, sounds quite difficult. It’s probably worth doing because I’m writing about Honda for the first time ever.

What a great way of getting people to actually engage with an ad. Make it a bit of engaging content with some jeopardy attached to it. It might work… it might not! Hopefully no skydivers will end up splatting into a Spanish field before the 9pm watershed. Afterwards… no problem…!!

Could this be adapted to the radio world. Perhaps… yes. Live ads on the radio were commonplace in the 50’s on US radio and were the early forerunner of sponsorships and promotions. But imagine working with an innovative client creating live radio spots that sat within a break, or were even the only spot in the break. Naturally, they’d have to sound like ads and also like the semi-suicidal Honda guys and girls, there would need to be a compelling bit of content to hook listeners in. But the theme of creating better, more memorable ads is something worth exploring more I feel. Otherwise we’ll continue to get listeners telling us the commercials are rubbish. And you know what… they’re right! Some of them are!! Here’s a little teaser film from the Honda guys as they practise heading towards the earth at 300mph head first! Nice!!