Radio Commercial

VIDEO CHAPTERS

• Description & Objectives

  Description:
  Students will produce a radio commercial for an original or existing product/service.

  Musical Objectives:
  Create background music that complements an advertisement.

  Technical Objectives:

  • Insert sound effects in specific locations in a radio commercial.

  • Record voice using an internal or external microphone.

  • Edit a voice-over recording.

  • Add effects to a voice-over recording.

  • Mix a voice-over recording, background music, and sound effects to create a cohesive sounding ad.

• Teacher Prep

  Prep:
  Find local radio stations that have many commercial spots in their lineup. Stations often offer their playlists on their website with non-stop music times listed in a schedule. It would help to make contact with one of these stations to make further connections with students. Call or email a station and let them know what kind of projects students are doing and if they would be able to set up an interview with a DJ or a field trip to the station. Do a bunch of listening to commercials yourself and identify the formula. Once you hear it once, it's hard to unhear how formulaic these types of advertisements are.

  Materials:
  Radio Commercial Rubric

• Cross Curricular Articulation

  This assignment has many possibilities for articulation with business, drama, graphic design, and English Language Arts classes. Reach out to teachers in your school that teach these classes and see if there are opportunities to coordinate the implementation of this lesson with corresponding areas of study in their curriculum. There are also possibilities to bring in professionals in these fields to interface with your students. Making these partnerships and connections will bring an extra level of realism to the class and show students possible career pathways related to music technology.

• Procedure

  As a Class:

  • Watch the top video and discuss the formula for a radio commercial.

  • Complete some of the connection activities to build confidence in scriptwriting, marketing strategy, voice-over reading, and background music writing.

  • Watch the longer step videos and create a product and radio commercial as a class.

  Individual:

  • Have students work independently or in partners to: come up with a product, write a script, record a voice-over, add music, sound effects, and mix their product.

  • Each of these steps should be followed by peer and teacher review for feedback.

  • When students are done, they can show each other their steps and make edits.

• Assessment

  Informal Assessment:

  • Check for understanding of the different aspects of a radio commercial after the top videos.

  • Walk around the room while students are completing the individual portion of their projects and check to see if their script is easy to read, their voice-over recording is easy to understand, the edits were done neatly, music was added to complement the voice-over, effects were inserted in the correct positions, and that all tracks were cohesively mixed.

  Formal Assessment:

  • The completed projects can be graded by the instructor against the rubric. Students should also present their products and radio ads to the class, between classes, within the school, and inside the community.

• Connection Activities

  Listen For The Formula: Listen to ads on a local radio station or those that have been selected off of the playlist from the lesson page. Have students work in groups to find the hook, reveal, description of benefits, call to action, and sticky ending. You could print out paper copies of the advertisements and have students use colors to show the different parts of the formula. The more they listen to these as a class, in small groups, and individually, the easier it will be for them to hear the formula at work.

  Connect To Local Voice-Over Artists: Call a local radio station and set up an interview with a DJ or a tour of the station. Most radio DJs will have to read ads on the air and have plenty of experience doing live and recorded voice-overs. You can also do an all-call to the school faculty, parent body, and/or community to see if there are any voice-over artists in the area. Have students come up with questions to ask the artists and see if you can set up a skill share with them and the school. Be prepared to send out many queries. The worst you can get is a no.

  Group Commercial: Give students the same chord progression. Instruct them to come up with a melody in their head and to sing their melody into a microphone and record it on an audio track. They should then switch devices and translate each other’s melodies. If students do not feel comfortable with having a stranger hear their voice, they can alter it by clicking edit on the region and selecting a voice transformation.

  Voice-Over Competition: Supply sample ad copy from the example link on the lesson page or by either finding or writing your own. Distribute it to students and have them practice reading the ad copy individually or in partners. They should record themselves in a low-lift manner, like with a voice memo app, to easily listen and refine their performance. Set up a microphone at the front of the room and have students read their versions of the ad for the class. Have the class vote at the end of the performances to determine who is the winner.

  Invention Brainstorming: To practice coming up with products and services, have students come up with a few problems that they have in their daily lives and write them on the board. Give them time to brainstorm products to solve some of these problems in small groups. Have them come up with names and a slogan for the different products. After an allotted amount of time, have students share their products and slogans with each other.

  Match The Music: Find a few examples of copyright-free music from YouTube (just search copyright-free music for ads). Here is a sample playlist. Have students come up with new or existing products/services that match the music samples. As an extension of this activity, you can supply the product and have students choose one of the sample songs. You can go even further and have students generate the music elements to match the supplied product or service to work on their ability to think like a DJ.

  Script Writing Speed Dating: Set up a few products around the room at different locations. Supply seating and a space for students to write at these locations. Set a timer and instruct students to write a two-sentence ad (around 15 seconds) along with a slogan for the product. When the timer sounds, have students rotate to the next product and complete the process again. When they are finished with all of the rotations, have students share some of their ad copy.

• Differentiation

  Enrichment: Students can work on the physical design of their product and draw a picture, create a model, or make a prototype. They can then test their product and see if it would work in the real world. Students can also create accompanying ad material such as videos or pictures to go along with their radio ad. This can be part of a larger marketing campaign that they design for their product/service. They can also determine where the ad and accompanying materials will be displayed to reach their target demographic. They can use student announcements, common areas, and participating locations in the community to workshop some of these ideas and bring them out into the real world.

  Remediation: To limit some of the choices in the planning stages of the project, students should choose from products and services that already exist. You can also give the class a category of product or service to help with this as well. The music can be a combination of pre-recorded loops and user-generated loops as well.

• Notes

  This is a very fun project that involves multiple modalities of creativity. You will find students that excel at creating visuals for their product, those that really like writing ad copy, and those that glom onto writing the background music. I find that taking extra time in the prep and planning stages for this project with students will yield higher quality radio commercials. While the quality of the product isn’t necessarily the most important part of the assignment, it demonstrates a deeper level of understanding by the students. Pulling in teachers from around the school that have a background in related areas to this project can help create a culture of creativity within the school. It can also enrich the experience for students by bringing in their expertise.

  To make it easy to record audio for students, find a few spaces that offer some acoustic isolation from the rest of the class. You can treat these spaces by hanging blankets or sound panels to remove unwanted reflections. While it is best to have students use external microphones for recording, internal microphones can get a good sound as long as the sound source is close enough to the device to get an isolated signal. Encourage students to experiment with different mic placements when recording audio to get the best sound and have them record multiple takes. Always have students wear headphones when recording audio and turn Soundtrap’s monitoring off to make it easy for students to stay in time.

• Standards & Pathways

  Core Arts Standards

  1. Creating:

     • Anchor Standard 1 (Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work): Conceptualize and produce a radio commercial for an original or existing product/service.

     • Anchor Standard 2 (Organize and develop artistic ideas and work): Organize and develop background music, sound effects, and voice-over recordings to create a cohesive ad.

     • Anchor Standard 3 (Refine and complete artistic work): Refine and complete the radio commercial by editing voice-overs, adding effects, and mixing all elements.

  2. Performing:

     • Anchor Standard 4 (Select, analyze, and interpret artistic work for presentation): Select and create elements of the radio commercial, including scriptwriting, voice-overs, and background music.

  3. Responding:

     • Anchor Standard 7 (Perceive and analyze artistic work): Analyze and understand the formula and structure of radio commercials.

     • Anchor Standard 8 (Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work): Present and discuss their radio commercials, explaining the choices made in creating the advertisement.

  4. Connecting:

     • Anchor Standard 11 (Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding): Connect their radio commercials to broader marketing and advertising contexts, understanding the role of music and sound in advertisements.

  Technology Literacy Standards

  1. Empowered Learner (ISTE Standard 1):

     • Use digital tools to record, edit, and organize musical elements, track progress, and reflect on their work.

  2. Creative Communicator (ISTE Standard 6):

     • Experiment with creating and editing musical elements and effectively communicate their advertising concepts through their radio commercials.

  Career Readiness

  • Music Production: Skills in creating and organizing background music and sound effects for advertisements.

  • Sound Engineering: Technical knowledge of recording and editing voice-overs and sound effects to create a polished mix.

  • Marketing and Advertising: Understanding how to create effective radio commercials that capture the audience's attention and promote a product or service.

  • Broadcasting and Media Production: Integrating musical elements and voice-overs into various media projects to create engaging and professional content.