Tag: radio

When The Redneck Met Gough Whitlam

Posted on by SW

To commemorate what would have been the 100th birthday of Gough Whitlam, relive my tribute from 2014.

I was only ten years old when former Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was unceremoniously dismissed from office in 1975, but his death last week had a profound impact on me, as it did on so many other Australians.

Prime Ministerial amusement

I am not only sorry at his passing, he was such a towering presence — physically and politically.

Many in Australia mourn that Gough’s political legacy has been tragically trashed over the subsequent decades, by both sides of politics. I doubt we will see a return to those heady days.

I had the pleasure of meeting “The Great Man” years ago when writing radio commercials
at Sydney radio station 2KY, which at that time was owned by the Labor Council of New South Wales.

Former NSW premier Barrie Unsworth was the General Manager and was showing Gough around the palatial corporate edifice.
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I was rather a fan of the Mambo clothing company. On the day in question, I was suitably attired in the standard creative uniform of a Mambo t-shirt.

My selection that day was a satirical parody of the famous Australian match brand Redheads (apologies to Australian readers for getting the glove puppets of explanation out). In place of the flaming caricature redhead, my t-shirt depicted controversial “politician” and all round embarrassment to Australia Pauline Hanson. The word “Redheads” had been brilliantly replaced by “Rednecks” with assorted contents and warnings as you can see.

After exchanging pleasantries with Gough, he looked down (quite literally) at my t-shirt,
smiled and said “Well done, Comrade.”

A memorable moment from an unforgettable man.

Vale, Gough.

©Steve Williams 2016

Your one stop shop for all your radio commercial cliché needs

Posted on by SW

You could always tell them to get *****d…
Not the ideal course of action obviously, but for a radio station creative writer it is very tempting.

I love the smell of sautéed scrotum in the morning

You will recognise these godawful radio commercial clichés from having them cruelly seared into your auditory canals as a listener, or being forced to insert them into a commercial by a sales manager or client with the imagination of a prawn.

In absolutely no particular order, with bonus appropriate responses…

“All your (whatever) needs” — I don’t have any needs… that you can help with anyway.

“Thinking (insert product here)?” — No, no I’m not. So do I have to listen to the rest of this?

“One stop shop” — The cliché to end all clichés (cliché alert). I’d rather sauté my scrotum
than use that in an ad. Unless you’re mercilessly taking the p*** out of it (the ad, not my scrotum).

“Located at… (address)” — Oh, so that’s YOUR address? I would never have guessed.

“All roads lead to…” — No, actually they don’t.

“They have all the best (whatevers) under the one roof” — as opposed to seven?

“Tonight at 8.30pm.” — Thanks for clarifying that.

Client voiced ads — No. Their ego needs stroking? Get them some lotion.

Ads obviously voiced by station “talent” that say “we” — Unless the drive announcer
is moonlighting as a car dealer, no.
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“Family owned, Australian business…” — So if it’s run by a single Swedish person
you shouldn’t shop / eat / drink / whatever there? Xenophobia much? Hopefully a very high-rating, high profile Australian metro station has a drinking game using this one. It’s very popular.

“Hello Beryl, that’s a nice (Wankel rotary engine), where did you get it?”
— Pathetic conversational ads, sometimes nauseatingly described as “slice of life” are the work of Satan. Nobody EVER speaks like that. If you have a gun to your head, maybe try and gently take the proverbial out of it. Or ask them to pull the trigger.

“Wankel Rotary Engines R Us” – Difficult, the client has chosen a business name that sucks…
see above option.

“Call us on (phone number).” — as opposed to? Unless the phone number is the only way to buy the product or makes up 90% of the jingle, lose it.

“See us at (address).” — Lose the horrific first few words.

“Check out our website, www.(whatever).com” — Ditto and lose the “www”, it’s not 1993.

“Are you in the market for…?” — Nope. Now what?

“Open seven days a week…” — Oh, so you mean every day?

“Don’t forget to like us on Facebook.” — No. You’re my proctologist.

There are no doubt many, many others, but I‘m feeling nauseous having endured this lot… “Thinking nausea….?”

©Steve Williams 2014

*The uncut version originally appeared here:
www.radioinfo.com.au/news/your-one-stop-shop-all-your-radio-commercial-clich%C3%A9-needs (for all your radio info needs)

Hey radio 2UE, 1954 just called … And they want their culturally inappropriate advertisement back

Posted on by SW

OK, so we’ve fallen for the stunt, but 2UE still needs to be called out for it.

The Sydney Morning Herald ran an ad in today’s racing section “The Form” promoting the radio station’s sports program with the headline, “Another reason to let her go shopping this weekend”.

Seriously, where do you start with this thing? Obviously a stunt to get people talking about the station and the program, which worked, but will it gain them listeners?

You can imagine the creative workshop / think tank / pow wow – “We need to come up with something that’ll get social media buzzing”.

“Yep, I reckon we cash in on the whole misogyny thing – I dunno, maybe something like women and shopping? You know, inferring that if the little woman goes shopping, her bloke’ll be free to listen in peace, preferably in his shed, with a bottle of KB”.

“You’ve nailed it!”

You can smell the Dencorub from here.

A great moment in advertising

2UE’s General Manager Chris Parker has apologised for the ad, saying, “we appreciate the advertisement has caused concern, and this was certainly not our intention”.

By doing so it cialis viagra for women manages to widen the blood vessels attached to it. The blood vessels cialis canada prescription must be unblocked to pass good amount of blood to organ for their healthy functioning, including male reproductive organ. To attain optimum usefulness, use the medication thirty minutes or maybe 4 hours before performing sexual intercourse. cheap tadalafil 20mg is the exact replica of the branded cialis. If you don’t like it, then you’ve only wasted five hours of your life…well maybe more if you want beautiful skin and beauty from within you will have the chance of selecting the option you want depending on your needs. purchase viagra online With the utmost respect Chris, I call BS on that one. That hoary old chestnut, “any publicity is good publicity” springs to mind.

You would have thought 2UE would have had more sense than going for a cheap shot like this, considering the dramas its mortal enemy 2GB has been embroiled in – think “chaff bag” and “shame” and so on.

Also, the latest radio ratings came out this week, and to borrow from the racing vernacular, it was 2GB first by a good length, 702 ABC up there as well, with 2UE almost bringing up the rear.

The ad was an interesting attempt to try and claw back some of that dead air between them.

There’ll be the usual cries of overreaction and being requested to “drink a cup of concrete and harden the f*ck up”, but apart from being wrong on pretty much every level, the ad is just disappointing, given what has gone on in the corridors of Parliament House recently. Hasn’t anybody learnt anything?

If 2UE want to continue promoting the station with lumbering dinosaur views like that, maybe it should change the frequency from “954” to “1954”.

©Steve Williams 2013

*To read this in another locale (with bonus amusing comments) wander over to…

http://www.news.com.au/opinion/and-they-want-their-culturally-inappropriate-advertisement-back/story-fnh4jt54-1226675021845