Type'm Radio Tuesdays: Tim Winton’s Breath

I browse around for award-winning radio ads mostly when I'm stuck on a radio JO and I need a little inspiration. It always frustrates me how much TV and press work I wade through before finding a truly great radio ad. To non-advertising folk, radio is the odd medium that advertisers don't really pay attention to. Or bothers to write about. That's why it's hard to find quality radio ads online. A lot of them are archived and you have to pay to listen. Isn't that preposterous? You have to pay to listen to an ad? Ads pay us, not the other way around! 

If you do find a radio ad, it's usually recorded. Nobody's even bothered to type it up. Copywriters need to be able read those words to appreciate structure and rhythm. So that's why I've taken it upon myself to be the no. 1 source for typed-up radio ads in entire world wide web. It all begins here with one of my all-time favorite radio campaigns.

The Sydney Morning Herald
Tim Winton’s Breath: 1, 2, 3.
Agency: Whybin\TBWA\Tequila Syndey
CDs: Garry Horner, Matt Kemesley
Copywriter: Steve Dodds
 

(1)

MVO: If Tim Winton had written this ad about Tim Winton, reviewers would be praising it as “one of the finest Australian ads ever” and “truly the ad of a master”.

If Tim Winton had written this ad about Tim Winton you’d be as moved by it as you will be with the exclusive extract of his new novel Breath in the Good Weekend.

Tim Winton could say don’t miss Australia’s Greatest Living Novelist in the Saturday Edition of the Sydney Morning Herald without actually stating he is Australia’s Greatest Living Novelist.

You’d just know it.

If Tim Winton has written this ad about Tim Winton, it would probably be short-listed for the Booker Prize. Not some stupid advertising award no-one’s ever heard of.

(2)

If Tim Winton had written this ad about Tim Winton, it would have a much better opening sentence.

It would swoop and soar, without using hackneyed phrases like, “swoop and soar”.

If Tim Winton had written this ad about Tim Winton you’d know what to expect from the exclusive extract of his new novel, “Breath in the Good Weekend”.

Tim Winton would find a way to say, “this extract of his new novel is only in the Saturday Edition of the Sydney Morning Herald so you shouldn’t miss out” that trips delicately off the tongue.

If Tim Winton had written this ad about Tim Winton, it wouldn’t suck.

Tim Winton would never use the word suck.

(3)

MVO: If Tim Winton had written this ad about Tim Winton, it would be over 400 pages long and populated by characters. They would have names like Pikelet and Sando.

There might be a talking pig, even though Tim Winton doesn’t like repeating himself.

If Tim Winton had written this ad about Tim Winton you’d already be excited about the exclusive extract of his new novel Breath in the Good Weekend.

Tim Winton wouldn’t just blurt out that it is only in the Saturday Edition of the Sydney Morning Herald so you shouldn’t miss out.

It would come out in passing, sly, but you’d still get the point.

Unfortunately, Tim Winton doesn’t write ads about Tim Winton.

Someone called Stephen Dodds does.