2011 February | Sherie Griffiths

February 24, 2011

When Is An Hour Forty-eight Minutes Long?

Filed under: Business, Marketing, Media — Tags: Ads, Advertisers, Advertising Medium, Advertising Revenues, Aim, Alexander, Audience, Commercial Tv, Cult, Economic Climate, Independent Television, Loo, Mear Cat, People, Phenomenon, Remote Control, Toes, Tv Advertising, Tv Companies, Tv Uk, Uk Television — sheriegriffiths.com @ 8:23 am

The answer is: when it’s on British commercial TV.
UK independent television is to be allowed to make increase the length of ad breaks from seven to twelve minutes. It’s an experiment which will run for a year.

The main aim is to bring more revenue into the TV companies, which have been hit by the economic climate like almost every other advertising medium (with the exception of certain online options).

I have to be honest and say I was sure that some of the smaller, digital-only channels, already ran way more than twelve minutes of ads per hour. It sometimes feels as though there are more ads than programme – but maybe that’s just me.

The TV companies and the advertisers are, of course, up against one major challenge here: the remote control. So many of us have the ability to stop and start shows, fast-forward through them etc, they’ll really have to work to get our attention. That’s one reason TV advertising revenues started falling in the first place.

One good thing I can see happening – I think it has to in fact – is that advertisers will put more effort into making ads entertaining and engaging. It can be done – the cult of the mear cat is testament to that. Love him or loath him, Alexander is a phenomenon in his own right now. The only danger with creating something like that is that some people (I’ve met a few) get so caught up in the character, they actually forget what he’s advertising.

If it’s done cleverly, the extended break will work – but ad agencies etc are really going to have to stay on their toes – which could be fun to watch.

Whatever our medium, whoever our audience might be and whether we’re selling a product, information or any other message, we have to be ready to entertain before we sell.

What do you think about longer ad breaks? Are you interested to see what use is made of them? Or are they just a longer opportunity to get a drink, go to the loo or see what’s on the other side?

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February 22, 2011

OOPS! ISP Loses Its Connection With Common Sense

Filed under: Business, Communication, Customer Service, The OOPS awards — Tags: Apologising, Bad Business, Business Communication, Common Sense, Internet Connection, Internet Service Provider, Interruption, Isp, Oops, South East England, Web Access — sheriegriffiths.com @ 12:15 pm

This week’s ‘OOPS’ award for bad business communication goes to an internet service-provider which I’ve been asked not to name.
Recently, their customers in an area of South-East England experienced an interruption to their internet connection which went on for more than 24 hours. Naturally, when their emails and web access went down, the first thing they did was to ring the ISP. When they got through, they were treated to a recorded message, apologising for the breakdown, assuring callers they were doing everything they could to restore connections – and recommending customers to:
‘Keep up to date with our progress by logging on to our website at www…’.
Hmm… what can I say…?

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February 18, 2011

Never Volunteer For Anything – Especially In Radio!

Filed under: Business, Communication, Media — Tags: 30 Minutes, Alison, Basildon District, Braille, Car Journey, Chelmsford, Formers, Good Afternoon, Half An Hour, Level 3, Local School, Parliament Project, Roundabouts, School Winners, Scraps Of Paper, Shorthand, Spontaneity, Wednesday Evening, Yesterday Morning, Young Persons — sheriegriffiths.com @ 11:48 am

I’ve heard the phrase ‘never volunteer for anything’ many times – but I don’t think I really appreciated what it meant until yesterday.

If you’ve ever caught my Thursday show on Gateway 97.8, you’ll know I work with Alison H. Not yesterday though.

Alie hasn’t been well for a few weeks and this week, she realised she really couldn’t make it in to do the show. So on Wednesday evening, I volunteered to stand in for her for the full 3 hours (my slot is normally 30 minutes, although I do contribute to about half of the afternoon programme).

The job of the ‘Good Afternoon’ presenter on Gateway is to be informative, entertaining and above all, engaging. The delivery needs to sound spontaneous – but trust me, spontaneity takes planning!

Picture the scene yesterday morning – there I was, rushing around, trying to prepare a 3-hour show, before I headed off to a meeting in Chelmsford (for which I was a week early – but that’s another story!). I finished up spending the car journey being briefed over the phone by Alison, on an interview with 4 6th formers from a local school – winners of the ‘Basildon District Young Persons Parliament Project’. It’s not easy bashing out notes in home-made Braille shorthand, on scraps of paper dug out of the bottom of your bag, using an almost-antique mini Braille machine, which wouldn’t quite fit on anybody’s lap and tends to slip and tip with the movement of the car. I had no idea there were so many roundabouts between Basildon and Chelmsford!

I arrived home from the meeting that never was to find myself locked out of the house. I did eventually manage to get back indoors for half an hour – then it was off to the station – where the, er, fun?!, continued!

First, the lift decided it wasn’t going to take me to the right floor. When I finally managed to convince it that I wanted Level 3 – not 5, 4 or 2! – I made it into the studio – only to find the computer, which holds virtually everything we need to run a show (music, jingles, ads etc) had decided to crash – 10 minutes before I was due on air. By then, to be honest, nothing would have surprised me.

After all that, it was a good show – two cracking interviews, with the students from Mayflower school, Billericay and wit Amanda Hill and Caroline Thomas, of the Social Media café. I wouldn’t like to guess how I look in the flipcam video which Amanda shot in the last half hour of the show though…

It’s a good thing I love live radio!

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February 15, 2011

OOPS! Now Who Needs The Guide Dog?!

Filed under: Business, Communication, Customer Service, The OOPS awards — Tags: Bad Business, Business Communication, Exit Sign, Guide Dog Owner, Guide Dogs, Madam, Oops, Security Guard, Shopping Centre — sheriegriffiths.com @ 11:40 am

This week’s ‘OOPS’ award for bad business communication, has to go to the shopping centre where a security guard attempted to tell a guide dog owner ‘Sorry, Madam – you can’t bring that dog in ‘ere’. Bad enough at the best of times – but he did it near an exit, almost under the sign which read:
‘No dogs except guide dogs’.

At the very least, can I suggest new specs…?

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February 7, 2011

OOPS! Shouldn’t the Dallas Fire Department have known earlier?

Filed under: Communication, Customer Service, Media, The OOPS awards — Tags: 30 Minutes, Bbc, Bbc Radio, Caution, Checks, Colleagues, Dallas Fire Department, Extra, Fivelive, Game, Last Minute, Oops, Radio Coverage, Radio Dallas, Superbowl, Ticket Holders, Usp, Weren, What On Earth, Whole Lot — sheriegriffiths.com @ 1:20 pm

This week’s ‘OOPS’ award is given with caution, because I must admit I don’t know the full story here. All I know is that the part I picked up last night didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

I caught a bit of the BBC radio coverage of the Superbowl, in Dallas (produced by our colleagues at USP Content). When I first flicked across to Fivelive Sports Extra, I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing! Apparently, the local fire department had just decommissioned a number of seats, leaving the holders of tickets for those seats outside the stadium – and 30 minutes before the game was due to start, they were still running checks?!

Now, I’m the first to agree that safety is paramount – but why on earth weren’t the checks done earlier – early enough to let the relevant ticket-holders know? It’s never easy to get tickets for an event on this scale – they’re always at a premium – and in a competition like this, lots of fans aren’t going to be local. So what on earth happened to make these checks so last-minute?

If you know, do tell me!

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February 1, 2011

Talk to your market but not through a sock!

Filed under: Business, Communication, Marketing, Podcasts, The OOPS awards — Tags: brand, branding, Business, Business Audio, Capital Fm, Chris Tarrant, Cliff Face, Dirt, Extreme Example, Feet, International Law Firm, Lawyer, Lawyers, market, Marketing, Opening Music, Podcast, Producers, public image, Sock Drawer, Subject Matter, Taster, Trans Atlantic, Wobble — sheriegriffiths.com @ 12:37 pm

I’m always telling clients to: ‘Talk to your market, not at it’ – but it’s no good talking to your market, or anyone else for that matter, through a sock!

I recently ran across a podcast by a very substantial international law firm (no, I’d better not name them here – but get in touch and I’ll dish the dirt!). The subject-matter looked really interesting – lawyers and social media (well, it’s interesting to me as an ex-lawyer, now involved in business audio, which ties in very closely with social media). So I downloaded it.

It started really well – a good, strong piece of opening music, then… as soon as someone started talking, it went straight downhill – in fact, the ‘hill’ in this case was a perpendicular cliff-face!

Chris Tarrant, when he was doing the Capital FM breakfast show, used to say that anyone on a dodgy phone-line sounded as though they were ‘talking through a sock’.

This particular podcast, recorded over a trans-Atlantic phone-line, sounded as though it was being muffled by an entire sock drawer! As if that weren’t bad enough, it was full of echo, digital wobble and bad editing – all of which made it ultimately unlistenable.

It was a great idea, in theory. Unfortunately, the producers shot themselves in both feet. What a waste of an opportunity!

I’m putting together a new FAQ page for the website at the moment. One very common question is:
‘What’s the difference in quality if I make my own audio in-house – without outside help?’

Well, there’s one fairly extreme example for you. I’ll see if I can pull out a clip (which doesn’t identify the people involved) and upload it here, just to give you a taster of how truly awful this thing was! ‘OOPS!’ doesn’t even begin to describe it!

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