Let’s talk about radio copywriting for radio commercials and radio advertising, as well as for television.

Both radio advertising and TV advertising sell with pictures. On radio, the pictures are painted in the listener’s mind; that’s known as “constructed imagery.” On television, you present the actual pictures — or what is known as “eidetic imagery.”

But whether you call them “eiditic images” or “constructed images” or just plain “pictures,” those pictures need to tell the story.

When in a radio commercial or a TV spot, the story is told via pictures…including this commercial from Australian television…

If you’ve never seen this commercial before, it’s likely you’re not even sure how the advertiser connects to the story.

They’re trying to advertise automobile insurance. But if I hadn’t just pointed that out, there’s a good chance that five minutes from now — or perhaps five seconds from now — you wouldn’t be able to tell me what this commercial was trying to sell.

You’d remember something about the women stopping, eyeing the guy, and then driving away. And maybe people in a call center somewhere. But you won’t think of automobile insurance.

Why not insurance? Because the pictures they’ve presented don’t sell the results of auto insurance.

Instead, they use a spoken voiceover to attempt to connect the pictures to the sales message. The idea is those women wouldn’t let the guy in their car because of his shoes. From the visual images, it looks as though they think his shoes are ugly.

But the announcer asks, “Do you really love your car?” So the viewer is expected to realize, “Oh. Although the women think the guy is “hot,” his shoes are too dirty to be allowed in their car. And if they care that much about their car, they probably want to make sure they have good automobile insurance.”

If you want viewers to see THAT story, you’ve got to paint it with pictures, not with a voiceover.

Television advertising and radio commercial campaigns DO work — when the pictures sell the results of the product or service being advertised.