Frank.net – the thrills without the frills

FoxP2’s – dare we say – ‘frank’ approach to insurance advertising for Frank.net is not only refreshing, it’s a reminder to us all that an honest, well-crafted message will pay you over and over and over again! Executive Creative Director Justin Gomes has the figures and stats…

RAB: Tell us a bit about the awards. What impact do they have for you, your agency and local radio creative as a whole?

JG: Awards are always nice to win, but they’re the result of great work and not a means to an end in themselves. What is sad to see is, as soon as a radio campaign wins an award, creatives want to imitate the structure and sign up the VO before you can say; ‘Virgin Atlantic’.

South Africa has experienced a real radio renaissance of late and this medium is where we’ll continue to be competitive with the relatively level playing fields. We don’t stand much of a chance when it comes to big TV production budgets, but in radio, concept is always king. Neither the Frank.net nor the Mercedes Benz winning radio this year had much in the way of frills. Just great script-writing and voice casting.

RAB: What’s the thinking behind the campaign that really made it work?

JG: Frank.net is a brand that tells it like it is without any sugar-coating and the campaign needed to reflect that. So no bells, no whistles. Just the straight-talking voice-over of Adam Behr talking about subject matter other brands in the category aren’t comfortable talking about.

RAB: please share some top tips on writing for radio.

JG: Radio is the most unforgiving of mediums. There is no place to hide. An average print ad can hide behind pretty pictures, a TV ad, the treatment of a great director. But in radio, it’s all about your idea. So when you present your script to client service, gauge how you’re feeling while reading the radio script to them. Do you feel slightly embarrassed and self-conscious? If so, chances are the script should never get in front of the client, let alone on the airwaves where you know its heavy rotation could end up in road-death.

RAB: Your thoughts on the awards vs. advertising effectiveness debate?

JG: There is no debate. The most effective ads are creative. The agencies that try and pit creativity against efficacy are the ones that don’t have the ability to be creative. Frank.net sold a billion’s rands worth of direct cover in its first four months of launch and six months later, we’ve just hit the R5-billion mark. If your clients want to read more about it, refer them to the recent UK analysis that cross-referenced the Gunn Report [global creative league table] with the IPA Effectiveness Awards [the UK equivalent of theApex Awards] and you’ll see that, on the basis of a sample of more than 430 campaigns across 16 years, creatively awarded campaigns are seven times more efficient than non-awarded ones (Campaign, 17 June 2011).

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