Radio ads

The history of radio:
The first radio broadcasts aired in the early 1900s. However, it wasn't until 1919 that radio stations began to broadcast continuously, similar to the modern practice.
Commercial Radio is the youngest member of the UK’s ‘traditional’ commercial media cannon, having only started broadcasting in October 1973. The first ILR (Independent Local Radio) station on-air was LBC, followed a week later by Capital Radio, both in London.  The first ILR station to start broadcasting outside of London was Radio Clyde in Glasgow on New Year’s Eve 1973.
http://www.rab.co.uk/why-use-radio/britain-loves-radio/history-of-commercial-radio 

http://www.rab.co.uk/unsearchable/Commercial-radio-and-the-local-advertiser

The average duration:
Advertising rates can vary depending on the length of spot the advertisers elects to run. Although 60 second spots are the most common, stations also sell airtime in 30, 15, 10 and 2 second intervals. 30sec ads have always been popular in television advertising, but radio stations just adopted this format recently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_advertisement

Use of sfx:
Radio uses voices, music and sfx to create moods and images that spark the imagination like print or television ads can't.

How music is used to target specific audiences:
The music used help to set the scene and also to keep the audience interested. From the use of music you are able to understand what type of film/ documentary you are advertising and help to boost the story.
How language is used to target specific audiences:
Usually the ad would be 6 syllables/second based upon the target audience
10s: 20-25 words
20s: 40-45 words
30s: 60-70 words
60s: 130-150 words
How voiceover is used:
Voicovers are used to help in terms of narration; they help to guide the story so that the audience know what they are getting. Voiceovers give the basic storyline but also go a little more into depth inorder to keep the audience interesting in the advertisement.

This is a professional radio ad by McDonald's:


This produced by some students trying to advertise m&m products:
I really like the M&M advert because I think it’s really catchy and I like the way they adapted the Greece song and made it original. I also like the fact that you never forgot about the product because they kept on mentioning different flavours. This inspired me to incorporate a song which would real the viewers but is also relevant and so I decided to use an African piece which in many ways related to our documentary because a lot of the documentary is centred around Aristote and, his dream being to come to London where he believes is the land of success. However I also liked the McDonald's advert because it provided a little story and so you could understand how good the product was and was able to picture it in my mind. I also liked the backing sounds which made it sound even more visual because it was sounds of slow swishing words creating a quiet atmosphere. I also thought the radio advertisement was funny because of the comment the woman stated. This inspired me to include some facts and create a back story to my documentary showing the things that Aristote is facing and how drastically different Kinshasa is to London; to paint a picture.