I just take dictation. The lack of a visual element presents a challenge to agency creatives who don t face it in other media. For the most part, creatives enjoy the opportunity to devise scripts for what is called the Theater of the Mind. A trend to avoid, according to many creatives, is overdoing it with sound effects. Radio is one of the coolest mediums because it allows the listener to provide the art direction, says Tommy Smeltzer, a Principal at Sixty Second Airborne, a company specializing in creating and producing radio spots.
Radio is a very visual medium, it s just that all the visuals are occurring in the listener s head.
All radio commercials, in one way or another, create a theater of the mind. Commercials that don t acknowledge that create a negative visual image. When you have a commercial where an amateur is doing the voiceover and he s screaming and yelling, listeners create an idea of what that company s image is in a visual way. They may create an image of the spokesperson being a seedy guy wearing a cheap suit. That guy could be wearing an Armani, but if he sounds like a goober, then he s going to look like a goober in the mind of the consumer.