If You Aren't Closed Captioning Your TV Spots -- You Should!

If You Aren't Closed Captioning Your TV Spots -- You Should!

Like many of you, even though I don't need assistance to hear my TV, I often turn on closed captioning.  Sometimes there's someone in the room who's trying to read or talk on the telephone, or I want to catch all the words to a song being performed by a band on a late night talk show.  Whatever the reason, I find closed captioning very useful.  I think all shows should be captioned.  

For one thing, it's just good business.  An advertiser spends tens of thousands of dollars or more on every spot they run.  A quick search on the net shows a company that will do it for $15 for a 60 second spot, so adding closed captioning doesn't add much to the cost; but the resulting benefits are many.

Here's one that excites me:  Putting captions on your spots can add 10 or even 15 seconds to the amount of time your message is on the air absolutely free!  Here's how it works:  Next time watch TV with captions on.  You'll notice some commercials are captioned while others aren't.  When a captioned spot is followed by one that isn't captioned, an interesting phenomenon occurs:  The last caption remains on screen through a good chunk of the uncaptioned spot that follows.  

Can advertisers use this feature of closed captioning to their advantage?  You bet!  Instruct your captioning producer to make that last caption contain your brand name, contact info, whatever.  Then let it fly.  When your spot airs, that final caption can linger long after the spot has ended.  And that extra linger time might just give a viewer a chance to write down your phone number or address and get you the sale. 

Now imagine this:  Suppose your spot is followed by one of your competitors' spots that isn't captioned.  While they're going on and on about how great they are, there's your brand name superimposed right over their commercial.  How's that for a kick?  Talk about guerrilla advertising!

Closed captioning is also the right thing to do.  It's a welcome service to those who are hearing-impaired.  They'll appreciate it, and it encourages good will towards your brand, again opening the door to more sales. 

It can also keep you out of trouble.  Recently, there have been several lawsuits initiated against universities (MIT is one of them) that haven't been captioning their on-line courses.  The argument goes that without captioning, the courses become inaccessible to the hearing impaired; that's a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).  Nobody needs a lawsuit that can be prevented for fifteen bucks. 

But without even considering the possibility of lawsuits or the goodwill captioning brings, the added exposure time for your brand makes closed captioning something a smart advertiser shouldn't pass up. 

Until next time, 

Fred Pagano

Brown Cow Studios creates 

"High Quality Video and Sound Design at Terrific Value."  

How can we help you?  Get in touch with me anytime.   Fred@BrownCowStudios.com

Tell Us Where to Find You!

Here's a fun little exercise, and the results will surprise you.

Take a look at the circular from any major chain store that you've got hanging around the house. Maybe one that was mailed to you, or one from the Sunday paper.

Now see if you can find any indication of where the nearest store is located. I'll give you 2 to 1 odds that you won't find any locations listed at all!

The big box stores are the prime offenders, but the problem extends to department stores and smaller chains too. The stores seem to assume you already know (how? by osmosis?) where their stores are located. Personally, I find it aggravating. And from a marketing standpoint, it's foolish.

I get a circular in my Sunday paper every week for OfficeMax. They used to have a store a mile away, but closed it about two years ago. I like OfficeMax, but haven't shopped there since the local store closed. Why? I don't know where they are! But they keep putting a circular in my newspaper anyway.

If you're lucky, a chain store might, in its circular, provide a telephone number you can call to find its store locations. "Press 1 to find a store within 10 miles of your home; Press 2 to find a store within 20 miles..." Frankly, It's not a call I'm about to make.

I find this amusing: When a department store, and Macy's is a prime example, runs a sale there's always a section on the last page of the circular that lists all the exceptions in very small print - "domestics not available in Hanover, shoes not available in Brockton" and so on. It's written to satisfy the lawyers, not the customers.

With a little rephrasing that back page disclaimer could satisfy both the lawyers and the customers:

Hanover open daily 9-9 (domestics not available); Brockton daily 10-10 (shoes not available).

Wouldn't that be useful information?

If you're serious about increasing sales, don't forget to tell your customers where to find you!


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Coming Up Next Time: "Fred's Advertising Clinic - Part One"

Brown Cow Studios of Boston offers complete creative services

including copy writing, scripting, and advertising production.

Please visit our website at www.BrownCowStudios.com

Should you take advantage of a station's offer to produce your ad for free?

Just about every radio station, and many TV stations too, offer their advertisers free commercial production. To advertisers pinched by today's economy it's a very attractive offer that's hard to refuse. But should you refuse it?

I think so. From my years of experience in the broadcasting industry, I believe a very strong case can be made for declining the station's offer and instead using a professional, independent voiceover artist.

First, if your ads are being produced by the station on which you've bought time, your ads are being produced by one of the station's staff announcers. The voice will be one of the five or six people who voice probably 80 percent of all their spots - those of your competitors too! I'm not saying that the staff announcers aren't good at what they do; on the contrary, they're probably excellent. But your spots will end up sounding like every other spot on the station, and listeners will easily tune them out because they don't sound any different from everything else they hear. They'll just be part of the "clutter".

To be their most effective, it's very important for your ads to stand out and sound different from the rest. This is particularly important with 10- or 15-second "shorts."

Secondly, auditory memory plays a big role in the success of your ad. If a listener dislikes a particular personality for whatever reason - maybe they think those dulcet tones are too syrupy, or they don't care for the subject matter of that DJ's show (think of your local "shock jock"), that voice will have made an unfavorable impression. That impression carries over, subconsciously, to your product - it's quite likely that just hearing the voice of the announcer they don't like will work against you.

If you've ever found yourself talking back to the radio or arguing with a particularly annoying or stupid commercial you know what I mean.

But when you use an independent voiceover announcer, you're using a voice that's not heard every day - day in, day out for years. So your spot cuts through the clutter, is more likely to command attention, and won't suffer ill effects from a listener's auditory memory of an unfavored personality.

Many voiceover actors have spent years in training, taking acting classes, courses on dialects and accents and the like. The result is not just a "read" of your copy, but an interpretation of it. Even with relatively straightforward copy, professional, independent voice actors bring elements of drama, credibility, and showmanship to your spots. They don't get lost in the clutter.

In the end, your advertising is more successful because it commands the listener's attention and gets results.

Finally, there's the price issue. Free sounds great, but how much is that "free" actually worth? Most voiceover actors, myself included, operate their own studios and can provide complete creative services - from copy writing to voiceover to producing a finished spot at very reasonable rates.

You also gain the benefit of a professional who gives your spot complete attention and wants to earn your repeat business. Radio DJs and staff announcers don't get paid extra to do your spot, and they may not be happy about it either - it's just one more spot on the list of 5 or 10 spots they have to do that day, in addition to doing prep for their on-air show, paperwork, and the show itself. Because they simply don't have the time to give you their full attention, you might end up with a spot that's not great, but "good enough."

When you think about the total cost of your advertising schedule, the cost of choosing a a pro voice actor versus the station's "free production" offer works out to a small percentage of your ad budget. But the results a pro voiceover actor will get you are much greater!

So when the sales exec from the station offers you free production, tell him "no thanks." Then get in touch with Fred@BrownCowStudios.com, or one of the many fine VO talents working today.

- Fred Pagano