by Justin Via

60 seconds of talking. Oh my!

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain cascaded and the wind wailed. It was on this night that I was asked to write - dare I say it - 16 car dealership radio spots. And the worst part, they needed to be 60 seconds long. Oh the terror!”

Okay, it wasn’t that bad. Or was it?

The Execution.

Car dealerships are notorious for a certain kind of advertising, so with my preconceived notions in tow, I knew this was going to be challenging. But unfortunately, the worst wasn’t over. Like any “creative” person, I want my work to be new and fresh, but in this case I had already lost a lot of creative wiggle room. Why? Because I was - Given The Execution (If you jumped back in fear, it’s okay, I did too).

Yes, I was given the execution. The 16, 60-second radio spots would have to be written in one single voice over – the long-time voice of the car dealership for that matter. That’s one person talking for an entire minute of time. Now, when I’m cruising in my car listening to some tunes, and a person comes on chatting away, my first thought is to change the channel. Especially if I hear any mention of APR’s or Over Stocked Inventory. So it was natural that I didn’t want to become the person, who wrote the radio spot, which caused another person to change the station.

The Realization.

Once the initial shock wore off, I started brainstorming. Now, like any good brainstorming session should go, everything goes. No matter if it’s good or bad, it goes on the writing pad. Yes, even silly rhymes. Oh wait… almost forgot one thing – we needed a strategy. So I put down my pen, called my freelance boss, and he said “Real.” Sounds simple enough.

Real. This is what the campaign was to be built on – the idea of being real. So it’s with this strategy that I revived my brainstorming session. I wrote down all my wonderful first thoughts, and they were bad. I even dabbled in some amazing second thoughts, but they were bad too. Then there were some third, and fourth thoughts that were beginning to look better. I began to think to myself, “Hey self, you may just be writing some spots that won’t make people want to change the channel.” This could work.

The Re-Execution.

“I yelled to some of my friends the other day. It was great, we were just sitting back, cooking some steaks, and I we were just yelling away. It was one of those real moments. You know, when you have a good yell with some of your best friends. Now that’s real.” (A quote I just made up to make a point.)

Replace “chat” with the word “yell” and that was our execution — of the execution. We wanted to differentiate the dealership by chatting with people. Friends have conversations, not yelling matches. Well, good friends do. And that’s what we want the dealership to become, good friends with the public. A good friend will pass on great deals, share funny stories and at times even get a little personal. If we were to build this relationship, the radio spots would need to do this too. So that’s what we tried to do. We’re still early in the game, but I am pleased with how I went from being completely jaded and stuck, to productive.

From my experience thus far, every project comes with its fears, some more than others. What I learned from this expereience is that even some good can come from a car dealer. Maybe even 16, 60-second goods. Guess we’ll see.

Justin Via is a second-year student at The Creative Circus in Atlanta. Since he’s coming up to the end of the road, he’s available to hire. Get in touch with him at justinvia@gmail.com.