Why do so many ads sound alike? "For all your ________ needs." "Conveniently located." "Friendly staff." "Family owned and operated." "Biggest sale of the season." I have experienced that there are two likely culprits to this droning and for the most part unmotivating ad copy. First is the ad copywriter. This person is usually is either a producer for video or audio who has been recently hired from college (in a small to medium market) as their first television or radio production full time employment. They have come from an exciting and comfortable world of "marketing" at college which to be perfectly honest with you is vastly different from the real world of day to day running your business marketing. They have watched and listened for their entire lives the vast variety of television ads and radio announcements and feel motivated to join the fun and glamour of the advertising industry. The majority of the time these well meaning and usually creative people feel compelled to create ads that sound like....well...ads. Using all the catch phrases above and more. Until your ad is completely meaningless to the consumer because it doesn't stand out in their mind, or motivate them to engage themselves in actively listening to or watching your ad.
The second person to cause this "ad speak" is usually the client themselves. They too have watched and listened to ads their entire lives and when they imagine their own ad copy they often want to say ad copy wording...so that the consumer wouldn't possibly miss the point that this is an ad and please listen. Unfortunately the client has wasted the vast majority of their precious 30 or 60 seconds of time that they are paying for to get the consumer to see and listen to why they should do business with them on. Often ending up with a mere 3 to 5 seconds of the ad with any really meaningful copy about them that matters to the consumer.
Don't get me wrong. These copywriters are not purposefully creating bad TV or Radio. And I also want to point out that it's not limited to a small advertising budget or locally produced TV or radio ad. I'm sure you've seen plenty of nationally produced ads which had to have creative budgets in the several thousand, to several hundred thousand dollars, that the ad said the same BLAH BLAH BLAH. In these you could have inserted any product in the ad and the copy was so generic it would have not made a difference in the ad at all. Tisk, tisk. And sadly, but truthfully, I have been responsible for ad copy that sounds like ads too...usually against my will as we all know that the bottom line is that it's the client's money which pays for the air time, and they are the boss. They get what they want. And if they want Blah, Blah, Blah.....that's what I do (kicking and screaming).
Tell me what you think about the ads you watch. Do you notice a particular product or category that is targeting you during a program or a network that you watch regularly. It's funny to me to watch NBC Nightly News or Jeopardy. All the ads are targeting really...really...old people. I guess I must be getting old if I'm watching too...ha ha.