Hell, I have come to realise, may not be other people, but repeated, everlasting exposure to 30-second radio adverts featuring one or more of the following:
- A voiceover so annoying it creates a Pavlovian resentment – hatred, even – towards the relevant product or company.
- A poisonous and moronically simplistic earworm jingle.
- A terms and conditions bit at the end which may contain even more words than the actual advert itself.
And sometimes – abandon hope all ye who hear it – you get all three of the above in one cosmically hellish half minute.
Aural exhibit A: McDonald’s ads voiced by Adolescence star Stephen Graham. A fine actor, sure, but for some reason, in this case, he always adopts a treacly, weirdly childish tone, followed by a maddeningly twee jingle – a two-second whistled monstrosity – before launching into a speeded up ‘Ts and Cs’ coda, sounding like a chipmunk on speed, which accounts for nearly a third of the advert’s running time.
Imagine hearing this McDonald’s advert addendum, at regular intervals, all day long:
Offer only available at participating restaurants valid only while stocks last specific serving times apply this offer cannot be used in conjunction with other offers or discounts only one transaction per customer availability may vary by location full promotional terms and conditions available on the McDonald’s website or app.
Why not just say ‘conditions apply’?
At this point, you’re probably thinking: no one is forcing you to listen, idiot. Just switch it off! Well, I do. Every time I hear the opening syllable of a Stephen Graham voiceover. And every time I hear the advert for electrical retailer Currys with its awful slogan ‘beyond techspectations’. And every time ‘F&C Investments’ informs me that ‘This advert is approved for distribution by Columbia Threadneedle Management Limited May 2026.’ Why do we need to know this? There is, an industry source tells me, no compliance rule in the world which requires this information to be imparted. Who cares who approved the sodding advert?
Does it matter? Not really. It’s not up there with war, plague, famine or a by-election in Clacton. But it’s fascinating to see, or rather hear, big businesses sustain such unnecessarily self-inflicted wounds. And it does matter – and if it doesn’t, it should – to the companies themselves.
Whenever I hear an annoying advert on the otherwise excellent Times Radio, I turn over to a rival station, usually Radio 4 or 5 Live. And I know, from informal polling among my friends, that I’m not the only one.
Some of the problems are unavoidable. Because of the nature of the medium, you can’t do what you do online when you come across an annoying advert; you can’t scroll on by. And ironically, the irritation factor is what makes radio advertising so effective. The very things that make you want to tear your hair out are often the very things that make it so memorable.
It’s a necessary evil (as far as my ears are concerned) because of course commercial radio can’t survive without advertising. But there are less irritating ways to butter the bread, such as sponsorship. ‘This programme is brought to you by Martin’s Mattresses: the best night’s sleep you’ll ever have.’
The most cunning approach, however, is the ‘integrated’ one, favoured by many podcasts.
Aural exhibit B: a recent edition of The Rest is Entertainment which, valiantly, for all the above reasons, tried the Trojan Horse method. What was, apparently, a discussion about Britpop actually turned out to be (amusingly) an advert for Lloyds Bank. It went like this:
Marina Hyde: What are your entertainment memories of the 1990s?
Richard Osman: I feel guilty talking about the 1990s, because you look back and it was such a golden era.
Marina Hyde: We’d never had it so good and we didn’t even realise because we were young and we just thought we were entitled to it all!
Richard Osman: We absolutely took it for granted. Britpop was in its pomp… Oasis playing to 250,000 people… Spice Girls… Trainspotting… And part of the optimism, of course, was that mortgages were more affordable. Which is what Lloyds is dealing with, right now.
Marina Hyde: Yup! Last seen in 1996, Lloyds are now offering 5k deposit mortgages to first-time buyers. Search ‘5k first-time buyer.’
You can forgive the clunkiness, because the intrusive, unwanted, joy-killing, soulless, pass-the-cyanide alternative would be so very much worse. Well done the producers for at least making an effort to do things differently and improve our listening experience. Memo to the UK radio advertising industry: you’re supposed to be a creative industry. So why can’t you be more creative?
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