After studying return path data culled from some 100,000 DirecTV households, DG and Kantar discovered that viewers are much more likely to stick with an HD spot than an ad shot in vanilla SD. All told, retention for HD spots was 18 percent higher than for standard-def spots, and that lift jumped as high as 28 percent when the ad in question was slotted in the “A” position of the commercial pod.

In the critical prime-time daypart, HD ads delivered a 12 percent lift over their standard-def counterparts.

So why don’t more people produce in HD? Soundscapes has been ready for several years with 5.1 Surround Sound mixing capability. Most good TV post houses shoot & edit in HD.

What we’ve found in calling television stations is that they’re not equipped locally to run spots in HD. It’s a budgetary question based on demand.

Here’s an idea…if you’re an ad agency, why not call the sales manager of your local stations and strongly suggest that they equip themselves to run spots in HD? Surely a push from the ad community might get their attention.

And when you’re ready for great surround sound in post, you know how to find us.

The piece of music he wrote was all guitar, keyboards & hip, honked-up filtered drums. The voicing of every instrument was in the midrange (the same midrange that the human voice occupies.) Terrific if you’re just listening to the music. Perfectly horrible if you’re trying to mix it with voice. And this music will always be mixed with voice.

Mixing it was a nightmare…we ended up having to carve a huge EQ hole in the jangly midrange, widen the stereo to create a space for the voice, and bring up the low and high frequencies so that when mixed, the music would still be present enough to hear without blocking the message. Oh…and it was 34 seconds long. Nice.

This is happening a lot in these budget-conscious days. Because of cutbacks, local club players are being called on to create music for advertising. They’ll typically do it for cheap, and after all, everyone has some kind of software on their computer that can mix multiple tracks of music. From Garage Band to purloined copies of ProTools, people have copped the attitude that software makes production easy. But easy and professional have never been good roommates.

Quality matters. Knowledge of our industry matters. When hiring people to create music for your client, budget the few extra bucks it takes to get real media professionals to compose your brand music. You’ll get far more than you bargained for, because we know that solid brand music for your client isn’t the same as a 34-second rock tune. No matter how hip or edgy it is.

IMAGINATION—It’s what lights the eyes of children at Christmastime. (No matter how old they are.)

We made this audio Christmas card with kids in mind…the ones we take care of,
as well as the ones who still live inside us.

So join us for A Tour of Santa’s Workshop and set your imagination free.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from your friends at Soundscapes.

A Tour of Santa’s Workshop by SoundscapesCreativeAudio

…and if you missed it from last year, we offer Bob Hulsey’s reading of “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

Twas the Night Before Christmas by SoundscapesCreativeAudio

The result? In a 3-minute commercial break, the average radio station retains 96% of its listeners. If the break lasts 6 minutes, the retention drops to 85%…(but what station would be cruel enough to run 6 minutes of commercials?)

Of course, we believe that the quality of the spot matters. Is it entertaining and engaging enough to hold a listener’s attention? Does it entertain first and sell second? These are the spots that get solid results for the advertiser. For more on that, enjoy my series Tune Your Radio.

For a summary of this new report, click here. To download the report, click here.

—Brent Walker

Here’s a spot we recently mixed for the film, “The Last Ride“, a story of Hank Williams. We always enjoy working with our friend, and executive producer of “The Last Ride”, Tim Jackson of Category One Entertainment Group.

Thankfully, those days are over and everyone knows that if you want to get to a page, it’s just as fast to enter the business’s name followed by “.com” as it is to Google it. But still, scripts are written every day with “www” plopped before the business’s name. It’s time to end that practice.

It’s safe to say that most people who regularly use the web are using up-to-date browsers. Behind the scenes, our browsers will insert the “www” for you if it’s necessary to get to the site. Any time Soundscapes gets a script with “www” in it, we test it in our browsers to see if it’s necessary. If it’s not, we recommend that you drop it.

This yields great benefits in your final spot.

• Saying “www” is not only awkward for the voice talent, but it also eats up a full second.
• Without the “www” your client’s URL is more prominent.
• The listener’s browser will resolve it just like it resolves the required “http colon slash slash”.

So save yourself some script time, get your client’s name out front, and help your voice talent…drop the “www.”

Too often, radio is like this. It’s used as a dumping ground for all the leftover ideas that wouldn’t fit in the pretty print ad and the hip TV spot—the phone number, hours of operation, and that outdated jingle the client always wants to use.

It’s tempting to try to send as many messages to your customers as you can. But don’t overwhelm the listener. Instead, focus on ONE big idea. Make that one idea strong and memorable. Your customers are more likely to act on that idea and response means sales.

But a crowded spot, like a crowded bulletin board, is simply ignored.

If you’re having trouble helping your client trim down their information overload, call us. We have some great methods.

Scroll through, filter & mark your favorites. You can even send links to clients via email, SMS, Facebook or Twitter.

Best of all, it’s free. Just drop by the iTunes app store and search for Soundscapes CastAway.