(By Paige Nienaber, obviously) There are some Universals in Life and smart radio stations play to them:
– Most people will not ride in a limousine except maybe on their wedding day.
– If you stick a video of a pet doing something cute on social media, people will engage.
– Sticking a DJ or hanging them from a crane will always get 1000X the response that a GoFundMe page will.
– If you state an opinion about some “best local food” on social, you will get many times the engagement that a pop culture auto-post will.
– Most people will work their entire careers without going out and socializing with their coworkers.
– And movies are the Entertainment Universal: just about everyone loves a movie. They just might disagree about what type of movie they like.
So, whatever can you do with movies?
Well, besides the obvious ticket contesting for the “big” movies like Barbie, you can send entire workplaces to go and see a movie.
First suggestion? Work with the mom ‘n pop theaters. They have way way more wiggle room and will usually want to play with the station.
Do a Holiday Film Bracket. People most assuredly have opinions and movies and this is a way for them to voice them. (Hands down, “Bad Santa”.)
“Short Attention Span Cinema” as done by 92.9 Froggy-FM in Santa Rosa: Amber plays four or five seconds of a movie. ID and win.
When they were owned by Cox, 95.7 Jamz in Birmingham did more and better contests than just about anyone. And one of the biggest was also one of the simplest: they did “Food & A Flick”. Gift cards to a movie theater and a $25 gift card to a local restaurant. Phones blew up.
Eight Word Movie Reviews. On Monday have listeners who went to see that weekend’s release, review it in eight words.
Now, on to the Dump:
Turkey Bowling For Dummies
I have a station arranging a Turkey Bowling event for Thanksgiving and wanted some suggestions. From my experience, we used frozen turkeys in the mesh bags because frozen turkey flesh on ice… sticks. Bowling pins were stacks of canned food like corn and sweet potatoes. POV the lead pin for video.
Jay Kruz with Mix in Cincinnati has hosted some very successful ones and suggests:
- The one here benefitted a food bank. $5 donation or canned foods to play.
- Prizes for high score
- Be prepared for the possibility of the fine folks from PETA or similar. Some people complain you’re wasting perfectly good turkey that could go to someone in need. Have your canned email responses ready. Don’t let them wreck your fun.
- We used actual bowling pins. There were designated pin setters.
- Have multiple lanes. Makes it more fun.
And from Corey Tremere with Ocean 100 on PEI: Multiple lanes is great and on ice at a hockey game intermission was a great change for us.
We did it once outside our studio on the sidewalk and used a coroplast banner as the lane, which made for a great visual.
Kate University
Have a social talent? Former Boise air talent Kate McGwire was so fantastic with the listeners out in public that they worked overtime to find excuses for her to meet and mingle. Thus was born Kate University.
She put together a list of stuff she’d never done (get an eyebrow wax, skate, go to a batting cage, spelunk, play poker, go see male strippers) and once a month she did it with a group of listeners who had also never done it. Really it was just an excuse to hang with listeners. Her university even had its own crest.
Share Your Salary
From Joss of Rob & Joss, Peabody Award Winning and Future Enterprisers runner-up morning show at KyXy in San Diego: Every Monday at 6:30 and 7:30 a KyXy listener describes what they do for a living, the hosts try to guess what they do for a living, and then the listener shares their salary.
Steve Fisher: Consultant From Hell
This is coming back after a 5-year hiatus. It reminds me of a lot of really successful bits where you try something and realize the next morning, “That might be a hit.”
“Steve” came up when Carson at 98PXY in Rochester emailed and asked me to leave a voicemail as the new morning show consultant. “Just say something stupid. That shouldn’t be hard.”
So I left a VM about being excited to work with them in Buffalo, that this was my first Hip Hop station (they’re CHR) and was looking forward to speaking with them. And for fun, I added, “What’s the deal with Sandy? Yeesh. Can we change her name to ‘Nailsonachalkboard’?”
She’s great. People love her and boy did it trigger them. He emailed and asked for another voicemail. I obliged, and over the next week left messages that demanded to see their storyboards (“I don’t want to hear anything that I haven’t approved”), talked about how their audience is Conservative Christian women and a beloved feature was offensive to their morals and then recommended a “great new bit called, wait for it – Fax Your Face – that my Smooth Jazz client in Dothan is doing!” That kind of stuff.
And always took a shot at Sandy. “I’m going to get a dump feature on my laptop so when she starts talking, I can cut her off. God, she sucks.” It was nuts. People hated me. (When we tried this in Memphis, I referred to one host as “a mouthy broad who needs to know her place.” That actually got “Steve” threatened with violence.) Eventually, Mike Danger came into the studio when I was on the hotline and fired me.
I took a film course in college that stressed the importance of antagonists. Look at Reality TV: every show has someone the audience hates.
It needs to be carefully handled because no sane morning show would actually air VMs that a paid-by-the-GM consultant had left them. And except for the final hotline thing, it’s all done by voicemail.
Let me know if you want to throw a brick in the Morning Pond.
Paige Nienaber insults/consults more than 100 radio stations on Fun ‘N Games (Marketing & Promotions). Find him at CPR Promotions. Read Paige’s Radio Ink archives here.
