Nick Michaels
Copyright American Voice Corp. 2015 All Rights Reserved
Want to really connect with your audience? Speak for them. Use your eloquence and ability to put into words that which they feel but cannot articulate. They will love you for it. They will thank you for it and they will listen to you for it.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
SUPERBOWL OF DEATH, WORST COMMERCIALS EVER!
Nick Michaels
Copyright American Voice Corp. 2015 All Rights Reserved
Superbowl commercials are usually created specifically for the event. They cost a small fortune to run. What intrigued me the most about this year's commercials was how many dead people were in them. The late Robert Reed from the Brady Bunch, the late Pres. John F. Kennedy narrating one, the late actor Paul Walker in a commercial about a film, and the late Harry Chapin singing Cats In The Cradle in another. Then there was a dead child doing a commercial for an insurance company. Besides those, there were many commercials for films about the end of the world. Thank goodness for Budweiser and its cute little puppy being saved from the big bad wolf.
With a few exceptions, this was the worst batch of Superbowl ads ever. I don't know about you, but it made me yearn for Coca-Cola's "Mean Joe Greene" and Apple's "Here's To The Crazy Ones." In the over communicated world, just about the dumbest thing you could possibly do is frighten people or make them feel bad. The commercials that didn't frighten me or make me feel bad, were so stupid, they were hard to watch. The 60's and 70's was the golden age advertising. While in many other countries, currently, there are some amazing stories being told in the form of commercials, here is the good old USA it is the dark ages of advertising.
Copyright American Voice Corp. 2015 All Rights Reserved
Superbowl commercials are usually created specifically for the event. They cost a small fortune to run. What intrigued me the most about this year's commercials was how many dead people were in them. The late Robert Reed from the Brady Bunch, the late Pres. John F. Kennedy narrating one, the late actor Paul Walker in a commercial about a film, and the late Harry Chapin singing Cats In The Cradle in another. Then there was a dead child doing a commercial for an insurance company. Besides those, there were many commercials for films about the end of the world. Thank goodness for Budweiser and its cute little puppy being saved from the big bad wolf.
With a few exceptions, this was the worst batch of Superbowl ads ever. I don't know about you, but it made me yearn for Coca-Cola's "Mean Joe Greene" and Apple's "Here's To The Crazy Ones." In the over communicated world, just about the dumbest thing you could possibly do is frighten people or make them feel bad. The commercials that didn't frighten me or make me feel bad, were so stupid, they were hard to watch. The 60's and 70's was the golden age advertising. While in many other countries, currently, there are some amazing stories being told in the form of commercials, here is the good old USA it is the dark ages of advertising.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
A Conversation Not A Broadcast
Nick Michaels
Copyright 2015 American Voice Corp. All Rights Reserved
A few days ago, on my radio show, The Deep End With Nick Michaels, I played a song by Jimmy Buffett. The song is called Death Of an Unpopular Poet. It has been a favorite of mine for a very long time. It wasn't until a Deep End listener heard it on the show and contacted me wanting to know who that poet was that I finally took the time to do a little research. One of the things I love about the Deep End is the connection we have via the music.I learn as much about the music from the audience as they do from me. It is a conversation not a broadcast. Jimmy gave the answer to a magazine called High Times in a 1976 interview. It turns out that it was actually two poets. Here it is.
High Times: Where did "Death of an Unpopular Poet" come from?
Buffett: I was watching Walter Cronkite one night, and he had a little blurb on there that Kenneth Patchen had died. That surprised me, because hardly anybody ever heard of Patchen except in small circles. He was one of my favorite poets. So I was thinking about him, and then I thought about Richard Farina. These guys contributed so much, but they died and we never appreciated them until afterwards. They starved their asses off and didn't get to stick around to reap their rewards. If you're going to go up there and try to make it, you're not out there totally for aesthetic value. Let's face it-you're out there to secure your future anybody that says they're not is totally false. I couldn't say that money doesn't mean anything to me. You have to pay your bills - I have to keep the band on the road. But you can still have a good time and write good songs. You don't necessarily have to prostitute your music, as long as you know how to handle it, put it in perspective. Those guys had a good time, but I'm sure they were miserable a lot of times. The success that they wanted, they never knew they actually reached it.
One of the best ways to take advantage of the intimacy and emotion of audio is to turn your broadcast into a conversation.
Copyright 2015 American Voice Corp. All Rights Reserved
A few days ago, on my radio show, The Deep End With Nick Michaels, I played a song by Jimmy Buffett. The song is called Death Of an Unpopular Poet. It has been a favorite of mine for a very long time. It wasn't until a Deep End listener heard it on the show and contacted me wanting to know who that poet was that I finally took the time to do a little research. One of the things I love about the Deep End is the connection we have via the music.I learn as much about the music from the audience as they do from me. It is a conversation not a broadcast. Jimmy gave the answer to a magazine called High Times in a 1976 interview. It turns out that it was actually two poets. Here it is.
High Times: Where did "Death of an Unpopular Poet" come from?
Buffett: I was watching Walter Cronkite one night, and he had a little blurb on there that Kenneth Patchen had died. That surprised me, because hardly anybody ever heard of Patchen except in small circles. He was one of my favorite poets. So I was thinking about him, and then I thought about Richard Farina. These guys contributed so much, but they died and we never appreciated them until afterwards. They starved their asses off and didn't get to stick around to reap their rewards. If you're going to go up there and try to make it, you're not out there totally for aesthetic value. Let's face it-you're out there to secure your future anybody that says they're not is totally false. I couldn't say that money doesn't mean anything to me. You have to pay your bills - I have to keep the band on the road. But you can still have a good time and write good songs. You don't necessarily have to prostitute your music, as long as you know how to handle it, put it in perspective. Those guys had a good time, but I'm sure they were miserable a lot of times. The success that they wanted, they never knew they actually reached it.
One of the best ways to take advantage of the intimacy and emotion of audio is to turn your broadcast into a conversation.
FOOTBALL WITH A FRYING PAN
Nick Michaels
Copyright 2015 American Voice Corp. All Rights Reserved
I thought to myself wouldn't it be great if instead of competing against each other, these four chefs would collaborate and create something together. All of them could bring their particular unique talent to the table and we would be the beneficiaries of that delicious harmony. Instead of the food equivalent of the Packers versus the Bears it would be the food equivalent of Crosby Stills, Nash And Young.
Today the massive amount of information we are being subjected to creates an endless and ever expanding competition for our limited time. That is a direct result of the over communicated environment and it is reflected in the programming. The polarization it creates is getting stronger and stronger. Black versus white, rich versus poor, police versus demonstrators, there is very little harmony. Instead of diplomacy and understanding we have war and torture. Instead of musical harmony we have musical competition.
The other day someone asked me why I do my radio show called The Deep End With Nick Michaels. The answer is so we can hear the harmony again.
Copyright 2015 American Voice Corp. All Rights Reserved
I was sitting watching television with my wife and daughters who enjoy watching cooking programs. Now normally I try to stay away from television unless it's a motion picture, which I enjoy, but I wanted to spend some time with them, so I sat there and watched. After a little while I realized what I was watching was not a cooking show but a competition. It was a football game played with frying pans. There were four chefs competing, They would each create some dish which would then be judged and in the end one would be the winner and the rest would lose.
I thought to myself wouldn't it be great if instead of competing against each other, these four chefs would collaborate and create something together. All of them could bring their particular unique talent to the table and we would be the beneficiaries of that delicious harmony. Instead of the food equivalent of the Packers versus the Bears it would be the food equivalent of Crosby Stills, Nash And Young.
Today the massive amount of information we are being subjected to creates an endless and ever expanding competition for our limited time. That is a direct result of the over communicated environment and it is reflected in the programming. The polarization it creates is getting stronger and stronger. Black versus white, rich versus poor, police versus demonstrators, there is very little harmony. Instead of diplomacy and understanding we have war and torture. Instead of musical harmony we have musical competition.
The other day someone asked me why I do my radio show called The Deep End With Nick Michaels. The answer is so we can hear the harmony again.
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