Once upon a time (now…long ago), James Brown had a hit with “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.” That song and its sentiment were right for the time. But in daily business practice, saying it loudly in a radio commercial doesn’t work so well, and here’s why. Listeners to a station get acclimated over time. And one of the ground rules they intuitively grasp over time is that when the volume goes up, chances are that a commercial has started. Well, people don’t like to be sold to as much as they like to buy. Having a product –via the copy—pushed at you, sold to you, is something people instinctively resist, much like they resist being backed into a corner (with nowhere to go to escape).
In short, here’s the way people frame the experience of hearing a loud commercial: loud = commercial = pushy = somebody whose push is panicky, which means the product itself is of dubious quality. The truth is that we prefer to buy from a person or company that would love to provide us with their offer, as opposed to desperately eager to sell us something.
Now that the principle is explained, let’s look at some specific examples. Most of them will come from radio spots, but let’s open with one from politics since my newest book, Face Time, about the U.S. presidential race will be coming out in a couple of weeks. As I recount in that book, I watched all the candidates live, giving their stump speeches. One of them (I won’t name to avoid any hint of partisanship) was easily the loudest candidate on a consistent basis, and in the end not very successful at securing votes. What was wrong with loud in his case?
• It took away any chance for nuance. If everything’s loud—and therefore supposedly important—well, then nothing’s important because nothing is differentiated. If you’ve already started at the highest level, you’re only recourse is to be like the hapless rock musician in the parody Spinal Tap and reset your amplifier for “11” (even though that’s really just “10).
• It took away any chance for building momentum. A great story has a plot, with a climax. The climax may, by volume, go high or low…but it should probably involve a shift. Start high, and you may cleverly go soft at the moment the script hits its high point, but that is somewhat counter-intuitive and will take real skill.
• It took away probity. Imagine you’re at a party and somebody is recounting a story in a very loud (drunken) voice in another part of the room. Not only is that person obnoxious and making it harder for you to converse, you will also most likely conclude that the person lacks manners, subtlety, and wisdom. “Discretion is the better part of valor” is a cliché for the reason that great minds – and hence a great mind selling a great offer—knows the value of not trying to hit the audience over the head, using volume.
Both television and radio receive a great deal of attention through the use of contrasts. In television, visual contrasts are abundant, color and black & white, tall and short, etc. In radio however, it is much more difficult to build such contrasts. This is one of the aspects that make volume very important to successful radio ads. Using contrasts in volume can build attention for the ad and even allow emotional aspects of the ad to pop. For example:
• One recent ad that we tested for a lottery association involved the reactions of different lottery winners. These winners shouted excitedly about the amount of money that they won. The contrast between the joyous shouts and the narrator allows a higher impact level with most listeners. Since the majority of radio commercials are loud, this contrast between high and low volume is what allows the ad to stand out.
• The lottery ad was also able to use volume to accentuate the emotional nature of winning lots of money. The best performing segment of the ad was actually the fourth excited reaction – which is surprising since repeating an idea four times in the same commercial can often cause fatigue. This particular winner’s excited reaction built up to a crescendo as he exclaimed “I won six HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!” As expected, listeners’ emotional reactions built up in exactly the same way. The ascending volume of the reaction easily made it the most impactful of the five winners who are featured in the commercial.
• Other ads struggle as a result of volume. As discussed earlier, overly loud ads can be abrasive and offensive to listeners, it is also harmful to use a steady volume throughout. One ad for a cleaning company utilized the typical narrator in the foreground with music in the background. Throughout the ad there is a steady pace of narrative until the theme song at the very end. The lack of volume change makes the entire commercial forgettable. Test subjects who listened to the commercial barely showed a response all the way through. By not adding some variety, it is impossible to note which aspects of the ad are important. So most of the details of the commercial are washed away in the monotony.
Much like intonation and other vocal aspects, volume is a powerful tool for radio ads if it is used with care. Using volume contrast to attract the ear of the customer and avoiding the loud, pushy, salesman image is the key to balancing the volume of an ad.
Dan Hill is the President of Sensory Logic, Inc. a Minneapolis-based consumer insights firm specializing in measuring non-verbal input through facial coding. Visit the website.
Dan is also the critically acclaimed author of Emotionomics: Winning Hearts and Minds which will be rereleased by Kogan Page Publishing this fall.
