Radio Commercial Project
Project Outline
Project Intro:
In this unit you will re-create a pre-produced 30 second radio commercial. You will learn the key concepts and techniques necessary to develop and edit a successful and engaging radio commercial for a target audience.
Project content/media required for this unit will be provided for you to download via your courses Google Classroom.
Project Breakdown
Week 1 (April 6-10)
3-4hours work/week
Lessons
Stage 1: Research and Production Elements
Research
Ever wonder when you’re listening to the radio or streaming music… What exactly is a radio commercial? Why are they used? What is their purpose?
- Promote a product or service to a target audience (the listener)
- It includes a “call to action” to motivate the target audience (the listener) to buy, subscribe etc.
- Commonly created by advertisers and sold as “spots” to commercial radio stations, online platforms, podcasts etc. that are intended to be played to their listening audience
Watch and Listen to:
Anatomy of a 30 second radio commercial - how this voice over guy does it!
Production Elements
Production Elements and Structure of a radio commercial
- Voices - number of; gender/age etc of speaking; etc.
- Sound Effects (SFX) - sounds of real life things (ie: crowd of people laughing; dog barking; car driving by; roller coaster etc.)
- Music - a soundtrack to the commercial, or music used at specific points throughout to help create a mood or feeling within the target audience/listener
- Special Effects added to voices and sounds - echo, distortion (we won’t be adding these)
- Tagline - The final thought that promotes the specific product or service being advertised
Tagline Examples:
“I’m Lovin’It” - McDonalds
“Just Do It” - Nike (old tagline)
Activity: Radio Commercial Production Elements Breakdown
Research and listen to a few radio commercials. Using the provided chart, breakdown ONE ENTIRE 30 second commercial and list all of the sounds you hear in the correct columns in the order that you hear them. The link below has dozens of examples:
www.bestadsontv.com/search.php?q=&category=&adtype=6&client=&agency=&prodco=&country=38&year=&month=&next=1
Radio Commercial Production Elements Breakdown - Exemplar
Radio Commercial Production Elements Breakdown - Template
Download the student template file below to complete your assignment.
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Submission: Due on Friday, April 10 by 3:15pm
Each student is required to submit their completed “Radio Commercial Production Elements Breakdown” in chart form provided to their teacher. Please include your student name at the top of the document as well as in the document file name. Please submit to your teacher within your Google Classroom.
Week 2 (April 13-17)
3-4hours work/week
Lessons
30 second Radio Commercial Teacher Exemplar - Uber Eats
Each student is required to submit their completed “Radio Commercial Production Elements Breakdown” in chart form provided to their teacher. Please include your student name at the top of the document as well as in the document file name. Please submit to your teacher within your Google Classroom.
Week 2 (April 13-17)
3-4hours work/week
Lessons
30 second Radio Commercial Teacher Exemplar - Uber Eats
Stage 2: Pre-production
Pre-Production includes planning, script writing and developing a tagline for your radio commercial.
The golden rule of planning for and writing an engaging and effective radio commercial script is to highlight ONLY ONE very specific benefit of using or having the product or service. For example; What does it do for you? How will it make your life better/easier? It must be specific and must only be ONE idea.
Don’t sell pizza just on the sauce or by having locations everywhere. Sell pizza because it’s always hot. We deliver. Or, that you have the best pepperoni anywhere! Successful radio commercials pick ONE idea and write a script around that.
A radio commercial is typically a short story (30 seconds) promoting or selling a product or service. Radio commercials are usually targeted to specific audience based on the vocabulary, pace/flow and overall tone it uses. Different target audiences will relate to a commercial based on their own experiences. Target audiences are broken down by “demographics” and the common characteristics a group of people might share. For example, gender, ethnicity, age, cultural background, religion, etc…
30 second Radio Commercial Script Exemplar - Uber Eats
1_radio_commercial_script_template_recorded_version.pdf |
Activity: Pre-production
Listen to the complete radio commercial provided within the unit. Review the provided script in preparation for the both the pre-production and production stages this week.
Tagline Resources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagline
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/brand-slogans-and-taglines
Re-write the tagline from the provided radio commercial in this unit. Develop a minimum of 3 new taglines. Then you will decide on which one you feel will best promote the radio commercial and that final one will be recorded.
Your tagline must meet the following requirements:
- Be memorable/catchy - creative choice of words
- Be short - write phrases not sentences (2 or 3 phrases MAX)
- Include the product or company name being advertised (Uber Eats)
- Connect to the specific benefit product or service being advertised (Uber Eats)
Stage 3: Production
Production includes recording all necessary audio required to create your previously script radio commercial. You may also research and or produce any necessary sound effects (SFX) or music you may use for the final edit of your radio commercial.
Production includes recording all necessary audio required to create your previously script radio commercial. You may also research and or produce any necessary sound effects (SFX) or music you may use for the final edit of your radio commercial.
1_radio_commercial_script_template_recorded_version.pdf |
Activity: Production
- From the provided script, change the first line as well as food items from bacon and tomato sandwiches to something that might interest you more.
- Then, record your own voices (two people maximum) from the revised script you have written for your version of the radio commercial.
- Finally, record your version of the tagline for the commercial. These will all eventually be imported in Audacity to replace the existing audio content.
- You may use your phone or another device to record the two voices and tagline. You can even record right into the Audio Editor Audacity if you have a microphone connected to your computer.
Submission: Due on Friday, April 17 by 3:15pm
Each student is required to submit their completed re-written script and recorded tagline. Please name the audio file as “Student First Name_Tagline Audio.mp3/wav” and the script file as “Student First Name_Script.pages/doc or a Google Doc” and submit to your teacher within your Google Classroom.
Week 3 (April 20-24)
3-4hours work/week
Lessons
Stage 4: Post-production
Watch and follow along with the provided step by step video tutorials for Audacity below.
Project Specific Audacity Video Tutorials
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Additional General Audacity Video Tutorial Resources
Additional General Project Resources
- Audacity 1.3: Multiple clips per track http://vjohnson.users.sourceforge.net/download/features-1.3-c.php
- Audio Converter https://www.mediahuman.com/audio-converter/
- How do I move audio from one portion to another in Audacity? https://superuser.com/questions/661264/how-do-i-move-audio-from-one-portion-to-another-in-audacity
- How to edit audio: Sound editing workflow for video editors https://www.videomaker.com/how-to/audio-how-to/audio-edit
Additional General Video Tutorial Resources
Activity: Post-production
Using the Audio Editor Audacity software and the provided audio production elements media, edit together your new version of the 30 second radio commercial that includes your recorded voices and tagline.
Don't forget, all media content required for the project can be downloaded from your courses Google Classroom.
Submission: Due on Friday, April 24 by 3:15pm
Each student is required to submit their completed 30 second radio commercial audio edit. Please name the final radio commercial audio file as “Student First Name_Final Radio Commercial.mp3/wav” and submit to your teacher within your Google Classroom.
Radio Commercial Project Rubric