Here are the techniques most agencies use
 to turn your best salesmen into hack actors. 

     It's no secret that most ad agencies dislike radio and television "testimonial commercials."  

     Although Real People endorsements are the stock in trade of Direct Response advertising, the genera rarely wins Addy Awards and does little to show off the brilliant copywriting, production and jingle-meistering skills of the staff.

     "Testimonial spots just aren't believable," states one mid-sized, mid-town Manhattan, mid-level Creative Supervisor who shall remain anonymous.

     To ensure that testimonials remain unbelievable, and hence only marginally effective, most agencies employ any or all of these techniques to "improve" the heartfelt endorsements of your best salesmen.

  Seven Steps to Ruination

    

A happy customer sends you a gushy letter or email which you forward to your agency.  Account management, creative and the legal staff go to work.

"OK, we got another one."

1. QUALIFY.  The first step is to compare the customer's own written words to the agency's Copy Platform.  If the customer used the same theme lines that appear in your ads, that's good.  If they use their own words, or - horrors! - a phrase or slogan that appears in the Other Guys' ads, they're out.  Oh, the customer has to fit the Target Audience Definition in terms of age, gender, education and income. 

2. BOIL.  The next step is to excise or severely reduce all those wonderful stories about "How my life was a miserable pile of pus until I found ____".   Real Life isn't nearly as interesting as product features, right?  Your TA just won't "relate" to mundane reality.


3. STANDARDIZE.  The team corrects spelling, grammar, and syntax. Even though most Real People butcher the English language from time to time, such gaffes are deemed unacceptable to Corporate Brand Managers.

"Make sure you capitalize the brand name!"

4. APPROVE. The vetted and edited copy is then reviewed, revised and approved by the same phalanx of AE's, lawyers and Brand Managers that approve all your other copy.  Last chance to X-out anything "off strategy."  The customers may even be asked to bless a paragraph that vaguely resembles something they wrote.  Most comply.   
 

5. RE-RE-RE-RECORD.  In order to control and enhance production values, the agency arranges for your customer to travel to a recording studio where he or she will strap on a set of earphones, sit close to a microphone, and read "their own words."  (If you're making a TV spot, the "talent" talks to an off-camera interviewer. That deer-in-the headlights, over-the-shoulder shot is supposed to signify "reality." )  

"That was nice.  Can we try it with a little more emphasis on the part where you say 'It really works for me!'?  Great... TAKE 52!... and action!"

Whatever raw enthusiasm the customers may have had for your brand is gone after Take One.  Thereafter, they're just trying to "act,"  something they probably haven't done since the Senior Class Play in High School.

6. EMBELLISH.  Insert a professional throaty high power basso profundo announcer who delivers the "real" copy.

Of course, the SAG/AFTRA talent's practiced diction, enunciation, and fast, smooth power-style overwhelms the customer's thin, tinny, stammering contralto.  

7. MIX. The last technical ruination attempts to make your amateurs sound like pros.  Your producer and engineers balance the tracks, equalize presence, compress, add base, add room tone, remove pops, and otherwise sand and polish the spot so it sounds, well, professional.

"Well, we did our best.  She was OK, a little flat.  The VO was terrific.  At least the client liked it.  Lunch?"

Eight weeks and Seven Steps later you end up with sixty seconds of B-actors reading bad copy.

No wonder your testimonial spots "...aren't believable."

 

Naturally I wouldn't have written this exquisite description of The Problem if I didn't have a well-orchestrated Solution:

 A Brief Guide to Testimonial Radio Production