UPDATE (May 28, 2008; 11:45 p.m. ET)— We have updated our :30 PSA with current statistics from the disaster. Please use that update which you can find HERE.

UPDATE (May 15, 2008; 7:56 a.m. ET)— UNICEF has now posted celebrity public service announcements on their You Tube Channel asking for donations to help raise funds for the Myanmar relief effort. Participants include Ben Stiller, Joel Madden, Nicole Richie and Tea Leoni. Please get these PSAs on the air. The military government has also allowed more relief workers into aid in the relief efforts but not enough to properly deal with the devastation.

UPDATE (May 13, 2008; 12:30 p.m. ET)— The New York Times reports that relief efforts are still being blocked by the Myanmar government. If and when (please be soon) that the government lets relief efforts in, the donations to UNICEF are going to be even more critical because the problem of disease and death only gets worse the longer its ignored. Please keep pushing the PSA’s to any media outlet you can.

UPDATE (May 9, 2008; 3:30 p.m. ET)— The web site Swiss Info is reporting that the United Nations will immediately resume aid flights to Myanmar and that one US Flight has been approved by the nations military government. Foreign aid workers are still restricted, though and I’m not clear how they plan to handle the issue of the government stealing UN relief supplies as reported earlier.

UPDATE (May 9, 2008; 12:00 p.m. ET)— NBC Nightly News senior producer Subrata De has posted two emails she has received from a friend of hers who has lived through the cyclone…you can read those emails here

UPDATE (May 9, 2008; 8:10 a.m. ET)— Thanks to my friend Joel Denver from All Access.com for this update via the Wall Street Journal:

May 9, 2008 –The United Nations said it would suspend all further aid shipments for survivors of last week’s devastating cyclone in Myanmar after the country’s ruling junta seized all aid material that had been flown in so far. The U.N.’s World Food Program “has no choice” but to suspend further shipments until the matter is resolved, WFP spokesman Paul Risley said. All “the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated,” he said, including 38 tons of high-energy biscuits.

The New York Times has its report here.

The UNICEF web site is still taking donations. My assumption is that at some point aid will be given and that funds will be needed. In the worst case, no funds donated will be able to be used in Myanmar BUT will be used to aid children when another international disaster strikes. The US Fund for UNICEF needs our financial support; let’s move forward and continue to promote this cause. Hopefully we’ll be ready to help Myanmar when allowed in.
————————————————————————————————————
ORIGINAL POST
Frustrating as it has been for all nations, including the United States, to immediately get food, water and medicine into the areas of Myanmar ravaged by the recent cyclone, the challenge of having to pay for all the needed relief in the weeks, months and maybe years to come is going to be even more of a headache.

Today UNICEF issued an emergency appeal for financial contributions to help pay for all that will be needed. UNICEF is working with Myanmar’s (Burma’s) military government to coordinate relief efforts. It occurred to me that UNICEF will need to promote this fundraising appeal.

My personal experience with non-profits is they don’t always execute communication plans as fast as possible because of restrictions on manpower and money. I hope UNICEF proves me wrong and if they do get audio and video spots out on this appeal, ignore and delete what I am about to do.

I’m stepping in to what I assume will be UNICEF’s eventual communications plan for Myanmar fundraising without an invitation and without approval. Screw politics and procedures. I’m a broadcaster and this is the internet.

Let’s roll.

Attached are two public service announcements (PSA); one sixty seconds long, one thirty seconds long both explaining how to donate funds for the cyclone relief effort directly to UNICEF.

The scripts I wrote (also attached) were based on text lifted directly from the UNICEF web site dealing with the Myanmar relief effort.

audio’connell Voice Over Talent is not receiving any compensation for this, we don’t want any…nor are we looking for publicity for us.

We DO want publicity (and lots of it) for the PSA’s themselves and ask that if you directly know any radio station or television station program directors, internet radio stations or podcasters, please direct them here or email them the spots or scripts (if they want to record spots with their own voice talent, God bless ’em!).

PSA’s don’t do any good if they don’t get played and if people don’t respond to the call to action. Please promote the availability of these spots within whatever professional network you are a part of and encourage their use to help raise money the people in Myanmar who have been so terribly distressed.

And if you could throw UNICEF a couple of bucks in the effort, that would be good too.

Please note in the comment section of media to whom you have sent this to or (if you’re the media) what outlet you are from.

Thanks for being a good person.

SIXTY SECOND UNICEF MYANMAR APPEAL PSA
[audio:http://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/mp3/UNICEF_MyanmarPSA_60.mp3]
Click (or right click)here to download the the :60 PSA!
Click (or right click)here to download the the PSA script!

THIRTY SECOND UNICEF MYANMAR APPEAL PSA
[audio:http://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/mp3/UNICEF_MyanmarPSA_30.mp3]
Click (or right click)here to download the the :30 PSA!
Click (or right click)here to download the the PSA script!

Tags: commentary, commercials, public service announcement, radio, tv, UNICEF by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
16 Comments »

Great advertising has a simple, understandable message.

Great advertising spurs a call to action.

Great advertising ignites emotion (hopefully a strong positive one, but not always).

Great advertising creates buzz.

This is great advertising….

Tags: commentary, commercials, marketing, tv by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
3 Comments »

Not everyone will remember the 1984 re-election campaign of President Ronald Reagan but it featured not only one of the best made political commercials ever but simply one of the most effective commercials of any kind ever made.

It was made by a San Francisco ad man named Hal Riney, who owned Hal Riney & Partners, and some other prominent ad men who were part of the “Tuesday Team” who helped ensure Reagan and Bush were reelected that year.

Besides the fact that Riney and his partners did amazing work for clients like General Motors and Gallo Wines (great interview on the campaign here from KCBS-AM), he was among one of the great voice talents ever to breath into a microphone. He was one of two ad men that I would qualify as outstanding voice talents (the other being Ferdinand Jay Smith from Jay Advertising).

Hal Riney died today at age 75. His creativity and his voice are but two small parts of his legacy.

I’d be happy with just one of them.

Tags: announcers, commentary, commercials, marketing, radio, tv, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
1 Comment »

Writing is an art and any performer in almost any medium will tell you that without good writing you have only a good chance at success. But with great writing, you have a very good chance at success.

As voice over talents, our profession honestly sees mostly average writing, especially when it comes to advertising copy. There can be a myriad of reasons that foster such mediocrity primarily due to the medium itself and the message.

In :30 or :60 seconds, you don’t have a lot of time to flush out an interesting premise AND get the product’s name mentioned and make sure they know what the special offer or point of difference is. Also, sometimes the product or service just isn’t that interesting.

I will grant you that one of the tasks a writer must deal with is making it interesting…that is their job. But sometimes that is really hard.

I got a piece of audition copy last week that I loved. I didn’t get the job but I thought I did a great job on the audition. Bottom line: the client obviously didn’t. That’s show biz and I’m OK with that. I spent a lot more time than normal on the audition (which, unusually, came with it own music bed) because the copy triggered my voice over endorphins.

There may be a better and even more accurate term for the rush I get when I read some copy but that’s how I’ve always defined that sensation I get when I read the copy, review the product and it triggers so clearly in my mind the perfect voice I must use to embrace the language on the page that to alter the clarity of my performance path would almost be insulting to the writer and the client in that order.

The bad news about this chemical reaction is that while it works for me, it may be an abysmal failure in the client’s ears. Yikes! There’s your truth in advertising, buddy!

But with such sparse meaningful direction for auditions done via email today, you absolutely have to go with your performance gut. Because while I didn’t get the job, in my ego-tastic voice over head, I produced a great spot…for, um, which I was….uh, not hired.

Do you get this sensation when you read certain copy? Does it affect your performance and/or audition? How would you describe it?

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
2 Comments »

If you know the medical or psychological term for the feeling you get when you watch a function or service or job you really have an abiding passion and respect for just be ripped apart agonizingly slowly and painfully, please let me know.

Because that’s the word I would use to describe what all voice talents and on-air radio staffers have been feeling watching radio’s long enduring death spiral. I think we’re closer to the last third of the spiral than the first third of the spiral now though. The money is really running out for broadcast companies.

Not to harp on all the reasons most of us in the business know about but in case you don’t, radio listenership and usage is way down, that brings down ratings and advertisers won’t pay for a less useful marketing channel. The competition in the media world is too big. And radio companies over paid for their properties and are saddled with mind numbing debt.

Sales people (many of whom are hired as a first job out of college and are directed to a telephone and a phone book and ordered to “sell!”) aren’t coming up with the ad dollars.

The biggest line item in every budget is salaries. And the first people to get cut (excluding sales people but that’s always been a revolving door) are the on-air talent.

Clear Channel fired Rocky Allen at WPLJ and John Gambling on WOR both powerhouse stations in New York (the latest examples). Less known (but not necessarily less talented) names continue to be felled by HR in markets across the country. No one is safe and most sad of all is that the audience seems indifferent to the loss. There’s a full body paper cut for you.

I haven’t been on the air in years but it still remains one of my most favorite jobs. That and production director for a radio station. It was creative, it was fast, you interacted with the audience….that was a gift. If you’ve worked in radio, didn’t you feel the same way?

Sure, pay was lousy and you worked with a few idiots. But I have yet to see a job that didn’t have those issues…even now and I own my own companies!

But much of what was great about radio for those of us on air has changed. More syndicated programming covers our local airwaves with names like Delilah, John Tesh and Ryan Seacrest. Bland, awful stuff. But it costs less than local, real bodies running the board at your station.

Maybe I’m the only one who notices all this and who cares but if I’m not, I really would love to get your take (short or long) on all this. Angry? Resigned? Saddened? Frustrated? Past it? Let me know. Thanks.

Tags: advertising, announcers, commentary, commercials, marketing, media, peter o'connell, radio, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
8 Comments »

There are more times than I care to count in recent years where I realize I have become my parents.

That’s not a bad thing as my parents were wonderful people to whom I owe everything. But “parents” often make references that to a younger generation seem “historical”. Like “oh Dad, that happened so long ago!” even though it was only 20 years ago.

For some of you, even in the voice over or on-camera talent business, the “so long ago” comment may apply to my observation here.

Recently, actor Dick Wilson died at the age of 91. Many people knew Dick Wilson (I did not) but many millions more (myself included) knew his character Mr. Whipple, the grocery store manager who implored the ladies in the toilet tissue aisle “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin.”

Mr. Whipple sold a lot of toilet tissue.

As many commercial performers know, a good run for a spot may last 6 months to a year. Dick performed as Mr. Whipple for Proctor and Gamble for decades.

P&G created a product, Dick Wilson created an icon.

P&G gets my vote for getting it “right” with the commercial now running for Charmin.

May we all perform so well that our employers recognize us thusly:

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, marketing, tv, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
Comments Off on one marketer gets it right