THE RIGHT WORDS (Building Blocks of Local Radio-TV Copy)

Experiment. Choose one word to take the place of a phrase.

Expand a concrete word into a descriptive sentence. Read everything aloud, critically, as though you are standing back ten feet from a canvas you've just painted. Is the picture clear? Is it effective? That is, have you used the right words?

USE VIVID WORDS

Take some common advertising adjectives. Then replace them with words that have a slightly different meaning and can make the product you're describing sound new, different, and really appealing.

Because every summertime ice cream commercial raves about "delicious" flavor, why not say "golden with flavor." "alive with flavor," or anything else original? When describing a perfume's "beautiful" fragrance, substitute "singing." Doesn't "singing fragrance" provoke rather good thoughts and feelings about the product? Every new model home is "the way to modern living." Yours might be "an adventure in space." If you're not accustomed to this kind of word-painting, expose yourself to some of it in print. In the fiction department: Anthony Burgess, John Updike, Ray Bradbury. If you're inclined to go further: Carl Sandburg, W. B. Yeats, Gerard Hopkins, Robinson Jeffers.

Don't overdo the poetry. You're still writing commercials that are supposed to sell something to somebody. Here's one successful example of using a touch of poetic language to sell savings and loan: Green. It's the color of life. The color that makes plants grow. That gives us the air we breathe. It's no accident that green is also the color of money. It pays you to preserve as much as possible where it is going to grow fastest, with the highest degree of safety. At the Great Green Machine we work together like a well-oiled machine to help you build a better life. That's why they call us the Great Green Machine. First Federal Savings and Loan.

USE URGENT WORDS

Vivid words can do a great deal for you by attracting attention to your commercials. It should be almost as obvious that you need urgent words for prompting action on the part of your listeners.

Some people in advertising still think that to be urgent you have to scream. However, screaming commercials filled with exaggerated claims have become so common that they don't usually get attention. While most commercials are screaming, the commercial that walks softly but carries a big stick has a greater chance of being heard. A sense of urgency can be achieved without screaming. How? One simple technique that's always useful is to use simple, direct verbs.

Read the following radio spot and you should see that it can be made more urgent by using simple verbs: You can save as you've never saved before.

Everyone is shopping at the once-a-year clearance sale of men's wear at J's Department Stores. During this sale, you can buy men's sport coats for twenty dollars each and men's sport shirts for as low as three dollars each. You'll be saving money and getting the highest quality clothing in town.

You can save on men's shoes, too, as well as on ties, pajamas, bathrobes. .everything for men, during the once-a-year clearance sale on menswear at J's Department Store. That's J's-where savings for men are man-sized.

Here's a second version of the same commercial: Save as you've never saved before. Shop the once-a year clearance sale of men's wear at J's Department Store. Buy men's sport shirts for three dollars. Sport coats? Top name-just twenty dollars. You save money-get the highest quality clothing. Save on shoes, ties, pajamas, bathrobes.

Save on everything for men...get man-sized savings at J's. Shop the once-a-year clearance sale of menswear at J's Department Store. These prices happen just once a year and that once a year is now.

Obviously, all those cliches, too, have to go. But the second commercial dwarfs the first because it has tempo.

It's direct. Let's examine why.

Don't say, as the first version does, "You can save." Be exclamatory: "Save!" It's your benefit line. Ask directly for the sale. "Buy men's sport shirts" (rather than saying "You can buy..." ). Exploit the sense of immediacy that use of the present tense can give. Make it seem that the customer is saving money and it's happening right now.

Incidentally, "during the" is always a warning sign that should stop you. You're getting too lengthy. Don't be afraid to cut a sentence into its smallest parts even if it results in a sentence fragment. If it helps you create a sense of urgency, it's a good sentence! For example, which of the following commercials, read aloud, is more natural and convincing? Breck's closes out the season by offering air conditioners for half price, including installation.

Or Buy your air-conditioner for half price. Half price including installation. Now, at Breck's Air Conditioning.

The second carries tempo and it is forceful and direct. When you're forced to deal with something indefinite-for example, a sweepstakes or contest-think in terms of when, not if. Say "you save" not "you can save." Instead of saying "if you win," say "when you win." Not "You can go to South America," but "You go to South America." See the difference? USE PRECISE WORDS Be exact, always. You'll find exact words carry a little salesmanship in themselves. Avoid try. You can strike this word from almost any commercial you write. Why use such a weak word when it is more vivid and positive to come out with what you mean and ask people to buy, drink, eat, drive, sleep on, walk on, sip, savor, feel, etc.? Avoid also that and which. These usually tell you that your sentence needs de-wording. Which sentences below do you prefer? There are many interesting things that can be seen in New Orleans.

Or Here are some things that people have said about our new car.

Or Here is what people say about our new car.

You'll notice that keeping the verbs in the present tense helps too.

Also avoid redundant expressions like:

-return back

-refer back

-repeat again

-good benefits

-still persists

-very unique

-write down

-and also

Chances are these and similar phrases would slip by most listeners, but in a minute spot you simply don't have time to waste with these redundancies-and they rarely help.

MEANING AND SOUND

When writing commercials, you're trying to make people behave in a certain way: use a certain product, see a certain show, or whatever. Your only tool for doing this job is language. You try to put together sentences and phrases that will make people behave the way you want them to.

But-forgetting about sentences and phrases for a minute-how can just plain words help you get the action you want? It's hard to fully explain, but it is a fact that people respond in different ways to different sounds.

In the English language, the i sound of little is often in words that mean something little. Bit, slip, slim, lip, lint, kid, mitten, list, hiss, pigmy are only a few. Chit-chat means small talk.

There's no real reason for this. It just happens because of the way we're conditioned by the way we've grown up with the language. Somehow, the i sound of little is different than the brighter i sound of like, alive, lithe, height, ride, light. The sound itself gives a certain impression.

So it's handy to keep in mind that word sounds are sometimes as important as word meanings.

A kind of flashy, free-moving impression can be set up by using the fl sound as in flag, flash, flurry, flounce, flippery, fling... and Walt Disney's !lubber.

A crisp, decisive mood can be set by words that have a crisp, decisive ending: yep, clip, pep, blot, jet, make, ship, shift, keep, poke, top, shop, ACT! I'm sure you get the idea. Spend some time thinking about words and what they sound like-and how you can use what they sound like to make your commercials work better.

Again, read every one of your commercials aloud.

You'll get impressions that you wouldn't otherwise and catch hard-to-read sounds that might have slowed the pace of the commercial. For example, even the innocent-looking costs can slush up a sentence, because of the hissy final s.

So, try making the subject plural in this case, and changing costs to cost.

EXERCISES

1. Describe the following things in one paragraph.

Vividly.

-one-day cleaning at Lord Baltimore Cleaners

-diamonds at Lahnz Jewelers

-your favorite sports car

-a ballpoint pen

-skis available at Britter Sports Hut

-bicycles from The Cycle Shop

2. Rewrite the paragraphs you've just written. This time, add a sense of urgency. Keep in mind action words and crisp, clipped endings.