In Part Two of his chat with Peter Saxon, the Eardrum founder and now President of the Cannes Radio Lions Judging Panel drops more bombshells about radio creative.

If you missed it, here’s Part One (subscription required)

About people who book voice talent, and have been doing for years, van Dijk says, “They’ve been doing it pretty badly or without enough effort.”

On throwing in free creative and production he says, “It’s just a race to the bottom because what everyone is doing is throwing in more and more value add to try and get 100% of the budget.”

On trying to engage listeners with the predictable, don’t bother, “They are way ahead of you.”

radioinfo: Last time we spoke, you made a suggestion that even you admitted was extreme – that stations should not offer clients in-house creative and production…

Ralph van Dijk: They’re completely different disciplines. The fact that radio is cheap to make is the only reason radio stations offer that service. It’s also because they have smaller clients that don’t have agencies and really it’s a matter of getting the name and the price out each week and that’s the expectation. That’s all they want. There’s not much strategy in it.

radioinfo: A lot of great ideas never get to air simply because they can’t get the client to approve them…

Ralph van Dijk: You need to sell it in passionately. Clients, they can tell. They’re not stupid.  They know when someone’s really passionate about an idea and has thought about all the other angles and has a really good rationale for why this is going to work. And if you’re presenting that to them they go, Oh, Ok if you say so.

radioinfo: What do you do when you’ve presented your ideas to one or two people, and then they tell you they have to run it past a number of colleagues – send it up a veto tree?

Ralph van Dijk: I am a bit pushy with that. I have often been in situations where you’ve sold it into the junior brand manager. They love it. They get it.  You’ve managed to convey the idea well. And they’ve gone to their senior brand manager and they come back and say, no they just want to go with something simple.

You say, can you tell me how you sold it in – what did you use?  Well I tried to read it like you did. But years of experience tells me that that’s not going to happen.

So either I‘ll record me delivering the script with a blurb at the top saying, here’s how this is going to sound. This is why this is going to work. Here’s a bit of reference material and it could be something from YouTube – it could be a bit of audio or another ad. And this is how its going to sound…here’s my crap version. And I’ll deliver it . That could be just on an iPhone and they hit play and then I’m virtually there.

Of course, it depends on the script and it depends on the idea as to how much you need to actually sell the idea. But I won’t let them go off and do it without the resources to sell it in. Its not fair on them.

radioinfo: A couple of weeks ago, to launch your new Earcasting division, you sent out a media release with the provocative statement, “Australian advertisers are damaging their brands on radio and television by using cliché voice overs and failing to create and maintain a distinctive audio brand voice.”  Did you get a lot of feedback from that?

Ralph van Dijk: Yes. Probably about 80% positive. A lot of people saying, Finally, this is here.

We had had a lot of directors, like TV directors going, Thank god. We pour our energy and our lives into making beautiful films  that are killed by that voice over that comes in at the end and is just the mood killer.

Those people have been very supportive. We’ve had agencies creatives contact us because they don’t want it to be crap.

They put the brief out to their producer, and the producer contacts the studios, and the studios will find the people that they can depend on to come in – not be late – do a professional job – make it sound good- make the words audible and not have any risks. That’s exactly the problem.

Those people, the same five people, will turn up and do a fantastically professional job but sound like everything else.So we’ve had a really good response from the people that matter.

The 20% that have been a bit snidey are the people that have been charged with voice casting up until now. They’re all indignant, saying, But we’ve been doing it for years! Well you’ve been doing it, but you’ve been doing it pretty badly or without enough effort.

radioinfo: But surely, when time is money you want a professional voice who can nail the script in a few takes and leave the producer to get on with their work…

Ralph van Dijk: Look, these guys have a great tool in their voice, but they still need to be directed in a way that makes them sound like their words are coming alive. So often they are just left to do what they do – give a straight read without much thought.

Its not enough to make the words audible which is what the majority of voice over people do all day. They come in and they make it sound enthusiastic – too enthusiastic probably.  Often the script doesn’t have much of an idea, so they have to try harder to get some engagement – some life into the script. So they make it even more energised which for us humans, we think, well that’s just false. I don’t believe what you’ve just told me. You’re trying too hard.

It’s like the guy who calls me at seven o’clock on a weekday and goes, Hello, Mr Van Dyke, how you doing this evening. And within a Nano second you know this is a sales call – no one’s that happy.

And there’s one guy that’s called me and I bought a case of wine and I bought several since then. But his approach was so unique and so real that I just said, I’m all yours. I know its seven o’clock and I am about to have dinner but talk to me.

radioinfo: Aren’t we all suckers for a good sales pitch?

Ralph van Dijk: We want to be sold. We want to believe that the thing we are about to buy is going to be great- we are consumers. But that’s the difference in what we want to do with voice casting or with ear casting. Just have a little more thought and quality and variety across the TV voice overs primarily. In radio we ‘ve been finding weird and wonderful people ever since we started. 

Its no surprise that we are going to cast some interesting actors and non-actors for our work.  But the TV world just hasn’t caught on yet

radioinfo: Despite that, and with all of TV’s current problems, radio still seems to be an after-thought with a lot of clients.

Ralph van Dijk: The briefs that radio networks are given for big contracts like 12 months deals and the turn around time they are given, like three days to come up with a proposal and creative with a plan and sponsorship idea. It is ridiculous.

There is no way you can do your best work in that short space of time. And its just a race to the bottom, because what everyone is doing is throwing in more and more value add to try and get 100% of the budget.

As a result, we are completely devaluing the industry we are in because once you have the idea it’s a quick to turn around and it’s relatively cheap. But the time it takes to crack that creative is not something you can pull out of the air. And if you do, you probably put in the first thing that comes to mind which is usually something that’s been done, nothing engaging. Something very predictable to the listener. They are way ahead of you.

Peter Saxon