Hegarty on Advertising

None of us has time to read every book that looks interesting.

Most of us don’t even have time to read every magazine article that looks interesting.

So, I’ll save you some time today and distill an article, and book review I read in this week’s Advertising Age.

It’s a review of Hegarty on Advertising: Turning Intelligence Into Magic.

Here’s the pithy part:

“I share Mr. Hegarty’s belief that storytelling is central to the art of communication and his view that we haven’t yet found good ways to tell stories in new media.“

As John Hegarty says, “We’ve become obsessed with gags, and not very good ones. The great thing about stories is that they carry a message. Someone farting in a room gets 20 million hits but it has no substance.“

Is your Morning Show obsessed with gags, or does it have substance too?

Is there at least one storyteller on your staff, who understands the purpose of the story is to deliver a message?

It’s the path to the deepest engagement your station can have with your listeners.

Of course, that only matters if you’re more interested in listening than hearing, if you can see the value in developing an emotional bond, a deep loyalty, to something your station offers beyond music.