By Jeffrey Hedquist
If your client has a sense of humor, create a campaign that lets her poke fun at herself. Maybe it’s a pseudo-interview, where she never gets a word in edgewise because the announcer keeps interrupting to tell the audience what the client was about to say. Maybe customers keep interrupting, or little emergencies keep appearing that allow you to work in benefits by the way the client handles them.
If his voiceprint is deadpan, contrast him with a voice who is truly excited about the benefits his business has for customers, interspersed with his unemotional “yup” or “you bet” comments.
Record short phone interviews with the client’s relatives about him and build the campaign around the family stories about the client, using short clips.
Or, take a “goes nowhere” story from the owner, cut it apart and create an epic:
Frank: My customers are regular, consistent.
Anncr: Frank Ambrosio, owner of Frank's Restaurant.
Frank: She comes in and orders the soup and the grilled cheese…
Anncr: Incredible! What a great combo!
Frank: Yup. Always orders it, sometimes a salad. Then, has the lemon meringue for dessert, sometimes not. Guess she likes it. Always comes back.
Anncr: Another amazing story from Frank’s Restaurant.
Find ways to use your clients’ voices without making them carry the ball for the whole spot. You could end each commercial with the client’s voice delivering a tag line that embodies the client’s personality. You might have a series of pre-recorded comments like “Yes, No, Tell ’em about our guarantee, Your next car is waiting for you, Here’s something you might not know,” that you simply write spots around each time.
Don’t take the “easy” way out by letting your client just read 60 seconds of copy. Find an interesting way to use his voice to its best advantage, and build him a success story.
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© 2000 Hedquist Productions, Inc.
