(By Paige Nienaber, of course) People who have enjoyed the excitement of a Springsteen concert know that part of the experience is the pacing. It’s relentless with few interruptions. When one song ends, the band either goes right into the next song, Bruce counts one out, or he pauses to tell a story.
That’s Radio. Or it should be.
I refer to it as the Dominos Theory Of Promotions: when one promotion ends, the next begins, and on and on. The audience has the attention span of a Golden Retriever on Red Bull. If they tune in and there isn’t anything for the talent to talk about other than music, they’re going to probably get distracted and wander off.
And that’s really what Promotions is: content. My self-imposed job description as a Promotion Director was to “give the DJs cool stuff to talk about.”
And don’t get caught up in the “we need to give stuff to people so they’ll like us” mindset. It COULD be a contest. Or it could be a diaper drive for tornado victims in Nashville. Or it could be the Ugly Sweater party you’re having. Or the Christmas Movies bracket you’re doing. Or it could be the football wager that the morning show has. Or the Noon Year’s Eve Party that you tied into.
Just… stuff that you have happening.
If I look at stations that were true MONSTERS like KSFM in Sacramento, Jamz in Orlando, Wild in SFO, KDWB in Minneapolis, Power 96 in Miami, and 95.7 Jamz in Birmingham – they always have/had something happening. One thing into the next into the next into the next. To be across the street was punishing. It was like being in the ring with Tyson. You were just getting pounded.
And now onto the Dump:
Santa Check-Ins
When Paul Kaye was programming BRMB in Birmingham, he had me write up 24 call-ins from the Big Guy (“Santa” is tm’ed by the NFL) to air as he circled the globe and closed in on the UK. Ask and I’ll share. I also have some Santa tracking promos that have been sold/sponsored in the past.
Oh (Fudge), It’s Almost Christmas
My epiphany was Saturday afternoon and I am mildly panicked.
One of the stations is going to get stockings and stuff them with swag from clients and cheap stuff from the dollar shelf at Walmart and do these next week so that they’re able to carry Christmas up TO Christmas and not have it end when the morning show goes on vacay this Friday. (Winner for longest sentence of 2023?)
Minaj A Trois
Coming to a station where winners will get Maroon 5 tickets, Nicki Minaj tickets, and $50 to a craft beer place. God Bless the Silly People.
That’s How We Roll
One of the stations is going to get 30 rolls of wrapping paper at a Dollar Store and on Saturday the 23rd a delivery service client will be bringing them to listeners who are wrapping and have run out. Why? Because they can and because it will again, give them a premise for saying “Christmas” the whole week before Christmas.
Thermal Audio
This was an idea from Newcap in Toronto. The idea was that new technology allowed you to heat your house while listening to the station. It’s pretty freaking brilliant.
A New Rear For The New Year
When Rob & Joss were at Froggy 92.9 in Santa Rosa, they did this. One version would be to get a fitness studio chain and also a client that focuses on healthy dining (and Diet Colas and other applicable advertisers) and have five listeners see who can get their butts in shape over 30 days. Before/After shots would then be used for voting.
A Charlie Brown Tree
There are still stations where the word “Christmas” does not appear on their social media or sites except, maybe, a pop culture post about “(Insert B List Celeb) Reveals Their Biggest Christmas Mistake…EVER!” Or a client’s ad for a sale.
Charles Schultz, The Grinch, and Frosty have done all our research and branding for us. One of the stations just had a BIG decorated tree drop in their lap. Cool. They’re looking for photos of PAST crappy trees and will pick the most pathetic to win an actually decent tree to make sure that 2022 doesn’t suck.
Crappy Caroling
Let’s Make A Deal demonstrated that watching people lose everything is entertaining. COPS demonstrated that watching people have a bad night is life-affirming. William Hung demonstrated that bad singing can be more entertaining than good singing. And 96.1 NOW-FM in San Antonio follows up on that by having people warble crappily to win cash. The morning show will lob out a carol every morning, listeners can use the Talk Back app to do their version and the worst will be picked at the end of the week to win $500.
December Weekend Contesting Blitz(en)
We spend a big portion of the year stretching premise and trying to get creative with our weekend contesting. So how sad is it to suddenly have three weeks of easy themes and imaging to play with… and do a Free Music Weekend? For most of these, you can stick any prize in. You just want a methodology that reflects the lifestyle of your audience: and right now it’s the holidays.
This is as good of a recollection of every holiday weekend that I can recollect.
Psychic Santa – This requires you to cut 20-25 bits ahead of time. You have a psychic mall Santa in the studio. People call in, and he looks into his crystal snowball and “sees” them using their prize, ie: “You are surrounded by people. It’s dark. The smell of popcorn is heavy in the air. You’re watching a giant talking beaver. Did you drop acid? Wait…no…you’re…hold on…it’s getting clearer…you’re at a movie theater watching Twilight.” You don’t know what you win until Psychic Santa tells you.
Red Means “Go” – Stick a reindeer on the website. When his nose turns from black to red, text in and win.
Season’s Tweetings (or Merry X-Mas) – Like “Tweet To Your Seat”. You have Secret Santa’s on the street. They tweet (or X post?) their description and a vague but progressively LESS vague vicinity where they are. The first listener to run up and ask if they’re the Santa, wins.
(DJ) On The Shelf – About to start somewhere where the Night guy is going out as an elf and getting his photo taken at random places around town. The photo will be pretty tight and cropped otherwise it would be incredibly obvious where he is. Be the first to post his exact location and win.
Ghosts Of Christmas Past – Nothing more than a music weekend where you spike in #1 hits from past Decembers. Maybe have a “ghost of Christmas Past” introduce the song.
Secret Sounds Of The Season – Done by KVOO in Tulsa in 2013, they played SFX from old school games, like “Operation!” ID the toy or game to win.
Not Available In Stores – This is a familiar tag on TV and Radio spots this time of year. If you have tickets or something else that is available only by winning, then get cheesy with the promo and parody some of these awful commercials.
Caroloke – Get a caller, start a Christmas carol, stop it and they have to finish singing the line.
Bad Santa – Having the character of an angry, ticked off, laid off, drunk mall Santa would be fun to spice up the imaging. You win whatever he gives you before he yells at you to get off his lap and, “Get the Hell outta here.”
Elves On Strike – Needed? An intern and a tank of helium. The premise? The elves at one of the malls have gone on strike and you’ve hired them to work the phones until the labor dispute is worked out. A vibe weekend. Who cares what the prize is.
Messages For The Troops – A couple of stations like The Wolf in Greensboro have done this for the 4th of July. They’ve opened up the phones and recorded people’s messages to the troops. You then post and send them the link. You could also have family/friends dedicate hours of music to specific soldiers and Soundcloud that hour of music for them.
Alone For The Holidays – First, try not to use the word “single”. That term has a stink on it. But maybe you do the cue to call as an older woman saying, “Honey, when are you going to find yourself a nice boy and settle down.” Do prizes like one ticket to a movie, dinner for one, a DVD to watch at home on a date night when you should be out, and maybe music from a recently divorced artist. If you have a Jingle Mingle club night, maybe a pass to that.
The Best Christmas Present EVER – Unwrap commercial-free hours of music. A music feature weekend. But dress it up a bit with the imaging and promos.
Keep The Receipt – Whatever you give away, include a receipt. In case they want to return it to the station for its cash value. (No matter what you give away, the cash value should be the dial position, ie: $1.02)
Holiday Film Festival – The name is awful. But the premise is good. This is the biggest movie-going time of the year. Get gift cards from a Cineplex. But, of course, you don’t say that. You say, “We’ll give you tickets to ANY movie you want to see.”
Christmas Bonus – An opportunity for listeners to call in and talk about how cheap their bosses are. Present all your contesting as being “Christmas bonuses” to the audience for being such good, hard-working, and loyal listeners.
Batteries Not Included – Doesn’t matter WHAT you’re giving away. Include some batteries. Because when you need them most, you can never find them.
Ex Mess – One of the things about the holidays? The mess. It looks like the Superdome after a hurricane at my house on the 26th. Give away Zoomba’s or whatever the heck those robot vacuum cleaners are.
Tree Jacking – Just taking the designated caller and giving them a tree sucks. You need a premise. Like KLAX where they snuck across the fence to the neighbor’s house every hour and cut down one of her backyard trees. And then snuck back over to the station. She was old and deaf so the chainsaw didn’t wake her from her nap.
Stocking Stuffers – The whole idea of promotional items is to give people something with your logo that they’ll hold on to for years. Key chains and crap like that end up in a drawer or garbage can almost immediately. For the Holiday season, you should invest in logoed stockings and ornaments. These are GREAT prizes and the winners will keep them for years. In fact, every on-air giveaway that you do during the Christmas season should include these two items. Have the jock “take the stocking down off the mantle” and dump it out on the air. Concert tickets, t-shirts, movie passes…anything could be in the stocking. Just like on Christmas morning. Of course, you’ll want to occasionally throw in a lump of coal, some socks from Grandma, and one of those things that you shake up and it snows. They called the contest Stocking Stuffers when WPGC did this.
An On-Air, All Weekend Christmas Party – My favorite weekend contest from 2005. In Saginaw at WIOG, they kicked off the staff party at 5 pm on Friday. The contesting had the DJ taking the designated caller, and then stepping out of the studio to go to the Promotions office to get the prize. The second they opened the door of the studio you heard loud music, shrieking, yelling… basically a raucous party. Rachel the Promotion Director had had her customary one beer and passed out on the couch, on top of the tickets. So the jock would sneak in, roll her off the tickets and grab them. Rachel would always mumble something like, “Hey. Stop. I’m really drunk. Quit messing with me.” And then start snoring again. I typed up a ton of elements for the jocks to talk about when describing the party going on outside their window, in the station lobby. It sounded, well, like the kind of party that listeners expect us to have.
Day-After Gift Exchange – Go to Walmart and load up on stuff like the 70’s Preservation Society Compilation 8-Track of Disco Hits, a Ronco Bottle and Jar Cutter, etc. On the 26th, take your prizes and the van, go out to a public location, and offer to exchange your junky gifts for lousy presents that people got the day before. Listeners can donate a gift to the “pot” and take one out in exchange. The same concept applies to The Great Tie Exchange. One of the stations did this as a “Re-Gifting Weekend”. The jocks hooked up callers who hated their presents and they switched and exchanged them.
Kiss Up For Your Christmas Bonus – A lot of stations have used this as a weekend giveaway idea during the holidays. Listeners get 30 seconds to suck up to their boss on the air and are rewarded with an early Christmas bonus of cash, prizes, or a turkey.
Power Presents – This is something that Power 96 has done and it was hit. When the station played the “Power Sleigh” SFX, listeners called in to win a Power Present. The designated caller got to come down to the station and pick an envelope off the tree that was in the Power 96 lobby. The tree had hundreds of envelopes on it, containing prizes that ranged from a t-shirt to $500 in jewelry. They then went into the studio, had some egg nog and cookies, and opened the envelope on the air.
Beat The Grinch – Kind of like Beat The Bomb, but the cash/tickets stop flowing when the Grinch says “I hate Christmas!” They did this at Kiss in Charlotte two years ago.
Win A Tree And Bust A Nut – This was XtremeRadio’s holiday tree giveaway in Honolulu when they included gift packs of nuts from a candy store.
Santa’s Puking Up The Prizes – A couple stations have done this. It appears that Santa got loaded at the North Pole office party and every hour all weekend, he puked up prizes for the listeners. Kind of like Pumpkins Out The Ass, you don’t know what you won until it’s out and cleaned off.
Wrapping With Wild – From a former Citadel station where hourly callers won a stocking filled with wrapping paper, tape, ribbon, tags, batteries, and a CD of Wrap music.
Chinese Gift Exchange – From Wild in Tampa where the weekend after Christmas listeners could trade presents with other callers on the air.
Escort Service – Again, surprisingly, from Tampa. Everyone qualified to be taken shopping at a mall in a stretch Hummer with interns dressed as elves to escort them around and buy and carry their presents.
Frosty The Doughman – A nice weekend umbrella from Keith Abrams for any contest that awards shopping sprees and spending money.
Wrestling Santa – It was a theater-of-the-mind death match on Power 102 in El Paso where listeners wrestled Santa for WWF tickets.
What’s In Santa’s Sack? – The name says it all. In SFO they called this Santa’s Unloading His Sack, but the concept’s the same. You get whatever is in the bag, every hour all weekend. KPRR had the morning stunt guy “get stuck in a chimney” and he unloaded the stuff that was in the sack that was wedged up there with him.
Naughty Noel Weekend – A Wild/Tampa weekend contest that had Sinful Santas (hot interns dressed up as elves) out delivering Sexy Stockings which were filled with gifts that required batteries and/or rewinding before returning.
No, Really, You Shouldn’t Have! – A gift exchange promotion that both Orlando and Sacramento did in 1998. People called in and complained about their crappy presents and traded them with the jocks for whatever prizes were in stock.
Trim Your Bush – Just another way of saying “We’re coming to your house to decorate your tree and we’re bringing a ton of presents.” Courtesy of K-Rock in Edmonton.
Tear Up Santa’s Text – A contest from Memphis, where listeners “texted” Santa, and he hit them back, telling them what he was giving them for Christmas, ie: what they’d just won.
Reindeer Races – Extreme in Vegas did this theater-of-the-mind contest to award X-Boxes. If the reindeer you picked won, you got the toy.
Reindeer Hunt – Jammin’ in Portland hid a plastic lawn deer and whenever they did a Stocking Stuffer on the air, they gave out a clue. The person who retrieved the deer won a Nintendo Gamecube.
The Weekend That Gives You Wood – Tree giveaways. What did you think I meant?
Deck The Walls – Wild in Tampa did this and unloaded tons of gold records and other label stuff that was piling up. Stuff that we take for granted but, for the average listener, would be REALLY cool to have.
Ho #1, Ho #2, Ho #3 – The caller picks one of the three Ho’s and wins whatever is in her stocking. Could also be done as Ho Or No Ho.
7-11 Christmas – WIOG in Saginaw did this as a joke aimed at the people who wait until the last possible moment to get gifts and the only things open are convenience stores. They gave away windshield wiper fluid, pork rinds, and car air fresheners.
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.
