(By Paige Nienaber) To paraphrase Bob Wiley, there are two types of people in this world: those who like April Fools and those who don’t. Put me firmly in the “Like”. I mean, it’s Radio. What’s not to love about having some fun?
A couple of years ago KSON in San Diego covered a new policy where the residents of La Jolla were diapering seals. Cmon… that’s FUNNY. Last year one of the Hubbard stations covered “the selling of naming rights to an iconic and historical local structure.” It got them press.
“We don’t lie to our listeners!” (said with the kind of venom used when talking about a pedophile.) Actually, if you’ve ever invited your audience for pizza “and fun” at a car dealer, you just lied: no one has ever had fun at a car dealership.
“It’s dangerous to prank the audience.” Yeah, if you’re an idiot. If Burger King can market Left-Handed Whoppers, Taco Bell can buy the Liberty Bell, and Olive Garden can promote a “spaghetti-growing tree,” then Radio can have some fun.
April Fools Don’ts
In all my four decades in Radio and with a hand in several hundred April Fools bits, I’ve only ever seen two stations get in any degree of trouble. Why? Because they were stupid. As I was telling a GM the other day, you’d have to put serious effort into getting in trouble on April 1st. Just look at these suggestions and take them to heart.
Fake The News: Don’t fake the news. What WNOR in Norfolk did in ’92 with the exploding landfill; that is faking the news. You can refer to news stories or have “listeners” refer to having heard about a new state initiative to ban tattoos. The ‘NOR thing scared the listeners. Don’t…
Scare The Listeners: You can play jokes on them, make them mad about their pets being taxed, or send them on a wild goose chase to find an underground theme park; just don’t scare them. That crosses the Hoax Line.
Don’t Name Clients: If you’re doing fake spots or fake websites (which are the best April Fools jokes because it takes it out of the hands of the airstaff and it seems less pranky), don’t mention a client, ie: our live remote at the nudist resort will feature prizes, games, free pizza and Coke. Hubbard in Cincy actually worked in concert with a regional airline that was starting a new route to a community that was 13 miles away.
Use Semantics: Don’t say “We’re giving away ten thousand dollars.” Say we’re giving away “ten G’s”. Jamz in Birmingham did a Hall Of Fame stunt in ’96 that literally put them on the map and made them #1. They dropped “500 one hundred dollar bills” from a helicopter. If they’d said they were going to drop “fifty thousand dollars” …big trouble. Of course, the bills were for listening to the station, ie: you owe us $100 for listening to the station. One thing Jamz did learn, as evidenced by the national coverage on all three networks that night is…
Try To Avoid Drawing A Crowd: If you say you’re going to have Taylor Swift in your parking lot at 9a, don’t be surprised when twenty thousand people show up, trample each other, and set fire to the station when they learn that it’s Taylor Swift, a 93-year-old resident of a local rest home. It’s best to never ask people to gather at one specific location. Fake celeb sightings generally are best when scattered all over town.
Don’t Say “April 1st”: If you’re doing a fake spot, say “starting Wednesday” or “beginning in April.” That helps take the spotlight off it being April Fools Day.
Don’t Fake Contests: Never EVER give something away that doesn’t exist. You can kill listeners, swear on the air, and play unedited versions of Amy Grant songs and you won’t lose your license. Fake a contest? People in DC will take notice. Never involve a “giveaway” with your bit.
An April Fools Do?
Remove The Talent From The Equation: Fake spots that lead to fake websites will do that. KSON in San Diego rams spots with a fake website for “Callahan’s Feline Cuisine,” a nationwide chain of restaurants that were people their first restaurant in So Cal. BTW: all the dishes were prepared with cat. I have a million scripts. Email me at [email protected].
And now, on with the Dumpage:
Gallery Quest
One of the uber cooler afternoon talent is going into a three-to-four month period that is going to be jammed with club gigs and asked what stations are doing for “games” at these sales appearances. Sadly, PPM may have ruined even these promotions for us.
First, you can never go wrong with The Dollar Bill Game. It’s not loud and raucous but the clients seem to love having people with wallets packed with bills come to their bars. Go figure. Every 15 minutes read off three numbers and the first person to come up with all three, in order, wins. (There can be other numbers in between them but they need to be in that order.)
I’ve noticed that quite a few people have “cell phones” these days. It feels like a fad. But you could do Gallery Quest which would be a scavenger hunt for saved images. Play some Star Wars music and announce that it’s time for another Gallery Quest… and give out a photo, like “A picture of you with a Disney character.” The first person to rush up with one of their mobile devices wins.
The Shock Ball Challenge
Obviously, prize wheels epitomize Show Business, but there would be other things that we could do on-site and at remotes. For instance…
Spring Break
This isn’t just a teen or college thing. Families actually take Spring Break trips. Which is why I try to avoid traveling in mid-to-late March.
- The Hall Of Fame bit for Spring Break was from WNCI where they did a contest and picked a girl and sent her and her friend to Daytona. ONCE they were down there, part two was revealed. Morning guy plus her father, fly down. They’d told her to be in her room at a set time every evening to take a call from the night guy. So she was there when they popped in. Oh. And so were some guys and some booze and… you get the idea.
- A couple of stations are working on Spring Fake, where you help a broke college student get tan and dummy up photos so they can make their friends believe they were actually at the beach. One station actually got cheap souvenirs and cocktail napkins from Daytona and gave them out as further evidence they’d been on the beach.
- Wild in OKC did Spring Broke. They got 2000 logoed plastic drink cups and sold them for $5 each. These were good for admittance and 97-cent beer at all their bar gigs that week.
- If you went to college in SFO, Palm Springs was where you went. So I had Dave Morales catch the last flight of the day south after his Friday night shift. And on Saturday, he just prowled the pools, finding students from the Bay Area and putting them on the air. It sounded so so vibing. And it cost a plane ticket and a hotel room for two nights.
- ‘HYT in Detroit did that with Lisa. Flew her down on a Saturday morning. She roamed the beaches looking for students from Michigan with a DAT. Flew back on Sunday night and all the next week her show was peppered with audio of local kids having a ball on break and sending out shouts to the poor sods who got stuck at home.
- ‘’QYK in Tampa has an older audience that won’t necessarily be flocking to the beach for Best Buns contests. But they will have kids who are out of school and need occupying. Creating a daily series of events for moms who suddenly have their hands full of kids for a week, would be cool. Movies. Parties. Open swimming at a pool. Something at a mall.
- I was stuck in a hotel in a blizzard in Albany with 300 girl swimmers and their chaperones. (Coming soon to Caballero Home Video.) Chaperone Horror Stories would be good for a topic one morning.
- Have a female co-host grumping about how she never went on Spring Break because of (faux premise). Stage a couple of calls from young people saying that’s too bad, she should tag along with them. Basically, find a bunch of college women she can ride with and share gas expenses with while she finally gets to enjoy Spring Break.
- It’s not necessarily rocket science: do a club event and audition listeners who are going south to cover it for your Facebook group. They get a gift card to a bail bondsman, admin rights, a phone for photos/video/calls, some condoms to hand out, and new swimsuits. They become little reporters for you, seeking out local students, posting photos, and covering the action.
- Could be done as Breakbook as a section on your social media. Seriously? Take ten minutes and go through your 18-24 listeners’ Facebook albums. LOTS of beach pics with them and their besties. If they’re going to post on their page, why not take an extra 10 seconds and stick the pic on your page?
Spring Break Imaging
One of a series of tips from Max Media Denver, and an AMAZING mislabeled track from Power 96 in Miami.
Station Composites
Looking at some of the promotions that agencies ask us to do, I wonder if they know anything about the particular brand. And being 1000 miles away, the only knowledge of your station may be what you’ve presented to them. This is why you will often see Sales Managers go to New York and LA and go meet with the buyers annually to update them on changes in their marketplace.
Still, a meeting can never really capture the vibe and the essence of some of the stuff that we do. This 2014 video from the spectacularly cool Radiowave 96.7 in Windhoek, Namibia does that. You see what they do in the station, out of the station, and in the community and you get to see their listeners. The people who they’re using 96.7 to reach. They did a great job.
Trip Imaging
Juneau Alaska Broadcasting’s stations in, of course, Juneau, Alaska, did “Where In The World With Delta” and one winner and their guest got to fly anywhere in the world that Delta flies. This is an above-average prize deserving of above-average imaging. Chuck Geiger REALLY nailed it.
Where In The World With Delta 1
Where In The World With Delta 2
Where In The World With Delta 3
Where In The World With Delta 4
The Anger Diary
My brother’s first gig out of med school was in a small town in southern Minnesota that had its share of very, very odd residents. There was one guy who had “the anger fence” and if you crossed him, in small lettering, on a picket, he’d let you have it. Zach at K92 in Roanoke has his own version of it. Here he was pissed at avocados.
St. Cat Trick’s Day
A very wise man or wise guy, in a phone conversation yesterday, noted that the majority of what you find on the internet is either porn or videos of cats doing cute things. As a Mennonite youth pastor, I’ll have no choice but to trust him on the former. But the cat part is right. In fact, myTalk 107.1 in the Twin Cities does a Cat Film Festival after a baseball game every summer.
Wise Person’s suggestion, since the 17th is a Sunday and wild drunkenness might be scaled back, why not have listeners submit vids of their cats and their wacky antics?
Easy As Pi
Pi Day is March 14th and the same individual and his station have 1000 (ONE THOUSAND) individual snack pies lined up to give out during AM Drive at a chain of markets. Of course, you can also do what Island 106 did and deliver pizzas to offices.
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.
