Happy Friday, everyone!
The topic for this week's poll question was suggested by Rod (check out his walk down memory lane here)*:
Have you ever used your child's voice in a radio commercial? If so, what was the business or service being advertised?
We'd love to hear your spots! Just use the "attach files" fields below. Looking forward to your replies!
*Thanks for the fond memories, Dad!
Wow - of course. We did a single commercial for Easter for a mall that blossomed into a multi year multi spot campaign. The original was to bring kids in to have their picture taken with the Easter bunnies, live bunnies. But the announcer couldn't get the copy read 'cause in the background the child was giggling so hard, playing with the bunnies. Amazing visual and they had a huge event.
The attached Team Gear is the child as the narrator selling sporting goods. I find the important thing about using kids in spots is that they have the main sell, and repeat the client name. Listeners will listen more closely to understand kids. One caveat, make sure the kids diction is clear to someone who doesn't know the child. After all, if a listener can't understand the words, they have no hope at understanding the intended message.
I'll include one more, in a similar "embarrassed child role" where the child is a bit older. This is for auto sales. If I could spend the day on this, I'd have plenty of other examples.
Rod, thanks for the trip down memory lane...
Neil
We have done several, but the "Back to School" for our local mall was my favorite!
I have a client who is a water conditioning company. The owner has a daughter who is in junior high. They recently put her face on their bottled water lable. Our stations took a clue from that and had her come in and record their commercials. Their business is celebrating 60 years and is a hometown business who focues on their customers and good old fashioned values. Using her voice in the commercials has helped get that message across. The client is already receiving positve feedback on the campaign. The commercial is attached below.
I have been recording my son for 13 years now (he's almost 16)
I do not have my very favorite one saved... it was when he was 3. We had a BORING insurance ad that was co-op (it was also cr-ap) so we used a 3yr old kid to read the boring ad. It really stood out and was STILL good for co-op, because it was word for word from their awful script.
Here are two more recent "Troy" ads
R Sports 4U is from when Troy was 10 or 11 (Great Christmas Ad)
Katy Wireless was about the same time (Fun Cell Phone Ad)
BulletBlocker.com is also an interesting concept... it is a REAL product, but we had to paint the picture of WHY it was a great idea! I used my wife as the mom... and my son is the one telling her why he needed this!
Fun topic... I feel bad that I didn't use any of my daughter's ads in the examples... she's 11 and still does ads for dad...Troy is getting too old to want to help me these days! ;o)
Have a GREAT weekend!
John Small
Sunny Radio & GreatSpotCompany.com
I don't have the tape anymore but back in the early 70s I had my daughter, then 4 years old. Try to say the name of a restaurant in Spokane. It was Clinkerdagger, Bikerstaff and Pett's. You can imagine the fun.
Here's a cute and very successful one for a KIA dealer in Red Deer, Alberta Canada. Everyone in town can sing it! Available for re-use in other markets too.
Geoff Bate
Imagine Words & music Inc.
1-800-246-2446
Clinkerdagger's is still around, Joe! I didn't know it ever had a longer name.
I've done this for clients, it comes out great and gives them that warm fuzzy feeling when they hear it.
When my kids were little they loved doing commercials with me. It often required a lot of editing because even when using their voice and tons of takes, the production quality was a big concern. Their voices were used in commercials for a restaurant ads, Rodeo Promotions, County Fair ads, wild game meat processing, even Manufactured Homes. Really, anything a family could be involved with could involve kid. That means it is not out of bounds to use the heart strings to bring your customers results.
The first MP3 attachment contains three spots recorded quite a few years ago for a local building supply store by the store manager's and owner's kids, writing letters to Santa, asking him to bring their dads power tools by "fill-in-the-manufacturer-for-coop-purposes".
The second MP3 has to be from the early 1980's, I believe. I don't recall where the kid came from - it was either the client's daughter or else a child's voice supplied by a production company that once offered semi-customizable audio templates for local production. In any case, the spot has seen a number of transfers from reel to cassette prior to loading it onto my hard drive, so you'll have to overlook the obvious deficiency in sound quality and focus on the content. It's a 73-second "60" (remember those days?)
Wow, what a trip down memory lane. I am a former station production manager and freelance producer. I am also a mother of 6 children. My kids have been voicing spots for well over a decade! Now they are all teens and young adults, so this poll prompted me to go back and listen all the ads in my archives. I share these two ads because I had forgotten how darn cute their voices were when they were little. Warning: Both of these spots 10+ years old and were originally saved on a floppy disk so the quality is not very good but I am so happy to have these memories of their voices.
