Radio Advertising

Radio Active tells the story of how radio listeners at the American mid-century were active in their listening practices. While cultural historians have seen this period as one of failed reform—focusing on the failure of activists to win significant changes for commercial radio—Kathy M. Newman argues that the 1930s witnessed the emergence of a symbiotic relationship between advertising and activism. Advertising helped to kindle the consumer activism of union members affiliated with the CIO, middle-class club women, and working-class housewives. Once provoked, these activists became determined to influence—and in some cases eliminate—radio advertising. As one example of how radio consumption was an active rather than a passive process, Newman cites The Hucksters, Frederick Wakeman's 1946 radio spoof that skewered eccentric sponsors, neurotic account executives, and grating radio jingles. The book sold over 700,000 copies in its first six months and convinced broadcast executives that Americans were unhappy with radio advertising. The Hucksters left its mark on the radio age, showing that radio could inspire collective action and not just passive conformity.

To learn more about Rowman & Littlefield titles please visit us at www.rowmanlittlefield.com.

In today's content consumed advertising business, radio remains a powerful and relevant way to reach millions of consumers all over the world. It will make you want to sit down and write a great radio ad!

There has recently been dramatic growth in the medium of radio. However, advertisers and agencies too often still use radio for its basic tactical abilities, leaving the emotional power of the medium untapped. This book is a practical guide to understanding and exploiting the true power of radio as the ?brand conversation medium?. Combining theory, listener understanding and practical advice, the authors explore the scale and effectiveness of radio advertising, how the medium communicates, it?s role in emerging brand thinking, and best practice for creating better radio advertising. Overviews, summaries, quotations and checklists are featured throughout, as well as case studies from companies in all sectors including Sainsbury?s, British Airways, Carphone Warehouse, BT and the British Government.

During the “golden age” of radio, from roughly the late 1920s until the late 1940s, advertising agencies were arguably the most important sources of radio entertainment. Most nationally broadcast programs on network radio were created, produced, written, and/or managed by advertising agencies: for example, J. Walter Thompson produced “Kraft Music Hall” for Kraft; Benton & Bowles oversaw “Show Boat” for Maxwell House Coffee; and Young & Rubicam managed “Town Hall Tonight” with comedian Fred Allen for Bristol-Myers. Yet this fact has disappeared from popular memory and receives little attention from media scholars and historians. By repositioning the advertising industry as a central agent in the development of broadcasting, author Cynthia B. Meyers challenges conventional views about the role of advertising in culture, the integration of media industries, and the role of commercialism in broadcasting history. Based largely on archival materials, A Word from Our Sponsor mines agency records from the J. Walter Thompson papers at Duke University, which include staff meeting transcriptions, memos, and account histories; agency records of BBDO, Benton & Bowles, Young & Rubicam, and N. W. Ayer; contemporaneous trade publications; and the voluminous correspondence between NBC and agency executives in the NBC Records at the Wisconsin Historical Society. Mediating between audiences’ desire for entertainment and advertisers’ desire for sales, admen combined “showmanship” with “salesmanship” to produce a uniquely American form of commercial culture. In recounting the history of this form, Meyers enriches and corrects our understanding not only of broadcasting history but also of advertising history, business history, and American cultural history from the 1920s to the 1940s.

Why people hate the radio ads? Why more and more people agree to pay money subscribing for satellite radio only to avoid hearing the commercials? Is it because they donât need to know about new offerings? Is it because they donât need any new products and services? Is it because advertisements themselves are intolerably bad? Or, probably, there are more serious reasons for this hatred? Author found out this reason. With this discovery, it was easy to suggest the ways to revitalize the âdeadâ business and foresee the breakthrough innovations that recover the efficiency of radio advertisements.