Well the team at Absolute Radio have utilised this TV creative and brought it to life through creative promo execution on air. The ads are all about the character saying ‘Thank You’. Wall’s are doing a takeover of the 1120 breaks on Tues and Wed, stuffing it with ‘extra filling’ (music, basically) and then on [Thank You] Thursday during the 1120 break – there is a personalised song from Alan The Dog from the TV ad. Listeners are asked to send in a thank you message via the website and one listener will get a bespoke song written to say thanks to a friend/relative . Additionally the winner gets £500 and £500 for the person they’re thanking plus a “sausage roll hamper”. Which is the most random prize I’ve ever heard of!

Here’s the on air trail produced by Absolute Radio’s Joe Thomas: (not available on mobile browser)

Download audio file (Walls-Thanks-You-Thursday-Promo-1-v2-Sausage-Rolls.mp3)

It’s a fun campaign and uses the power of radio promotions to bring a central creative theme to life – it takes a strong idea and drives it through all touch points of the station, engaging listener and bringing the sponsor brand to life. Great work.

Next week sees Smooth Radio launch a new regional campaign in Manchester and Birmingham – utilising playlist artists to show the emotional lift that music provides. It’s a music-led, stained-glass window creative approach.

The campaign will be executed via multiple touch points including 48 sheet and 6 sheet outdoor as well as leaflet drops in Birmingham and Manchester. There will be a digital lean too with  mobile advertising and a Facebook application to drive new digital listeners. Additionally – the station will be running an on air competition to win a trip to Las Vegas. The design on the outdoor ads includes artists such as Michael Bublé and Elton John, etched in brightly coloured stained glass as well as the names of their key artists including Tina Turner, Luther Vandross, Rod Stewart, Lionel Richie and Adele.

The outdoor activity will take place in cities of Manchester and Birmingham, as GMG have identified these locations as areas in which Smooth has the potential to grow.

Creative is by Arnold KLP and media is brought by MediaCom.

Radio drama is in pretty good health in the UK, largely thanks to the BBC. Who else in the world broadcasts two fresh radio drama productions every day of the week and a string of archive drama on a separate Extra channel?

Now, two final-year Media and Comms students at Birmingham University are adding to this wealth of British radio drama.

Samantha Brough and Nardia Millington have formed their own production company and their first work, The Block, is broadcast tonight on Scratch Radio in Birmingham.

Tune in from 6pm to hear what happens when a bereaved brother and sister move into the fictional ‘Amersham’ council estate.

As the Radio Times-esq billing teases:

I really hope The Block makes for some interesting listening. Scratch FM has cleverly scheduled a discussion around the first episodes to introduce the concept and characters.

The episodes themselves will be online as a download also.

If you want to develop some of the key skills in creative radio, I reckon drama’s not a bad place to gain experience. As some readers will know, my first proper radio job was making the sound effects for The Archers.

Working alongside the cast and producers and highly experienced studio managers that job taught me much of what I know about perspective, stereo image and room acoustics.

Radio drama also helps you understand how actors, writers and directors think.

It’s good to understand people’s complex interlocking priorities, performances, insecurities and egos if you want to help the drama to explode on the air, and not in the studio.

Orion chose to drop their Midlands hertiage station names in favour of a more streamlined and consolidated radio brand called Free Radio.

Orion’s streamlining is similar to that taken market leaders Global Radio and their Heart and Capital strategy which has had a positive effect supported by some heavy outdoor and TV advertising activity.

So here’s  the TV creative for Free Radio featuring a dancing hamster* which launched during this weekend’s Britain’s Got Talent on ITV Central.

*We’re reliably informed that no hamsters were harmed in the making of this advert.

It’s a simple execution but there’s two things that really stand out with this TV spot:

1. It brings across the personality and enthusiasm of the on-air team and show.

2. Several touchpoints of where you can listen to the show are brought to life “on the radio, mobile, online and through your TV”. making the show part of a lifestyle choice for the technology conscious youth audience.