(By Paige Nienaber) “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” If there was ever a promotion that fit that, it would be the World’s Largest Outdoor Lunches. In 1985, I was at WLOL’s Top 40 in the Twin Cities. My father had just suddenly passed away and the Promotion Director dumped a project on me to keep me occupied. Plus he wanted nothing to do with it.
One of our biggest advertisers was Rainbow Foods, a regional chain of grocery stores. It was that Dream Client. They spent huge bucks and we did big, cool promotions. They had an outstandingly creative Marketing team and along with the station’s Co-Op Sales Director, Val Maki, had put together a series of events called “World’s Largest Outdoor Lunches” or “W.L.O.L’s”
One weekend a month in June, July, and September (August was off because of the Minnesota State Fair), we would take over a Rainbow Foods parking lot and serve up free food.
I sense the Radio People groaning. We’ve all experienced the people who will come to a car dealer to get a piece of stale pizza. Imagine the throngs that would come to an event where all they had to do was walk into a store, get a free ticket, go out to a giant canopy in the parking lot, and get a hot dog, bratwurst, chips, baked beans, chips and salsa, a soft drink and ice cream.
It looked like Ellis Island. I can understand Tom pawning this off on his idiot assistant.
Once the Sales staff saw the money to be made, we started having menu items like microwave quiche and fried pizza. That required bringing in electricians to tap the light poles in the parking lot. That was the summer I learned what an amp was. The frigging quiche would trip the breakers.
This was my first true experience with events and there were permits, rentals, signage, and staffing. All of the food vendors provided people to work, and all WLOL employees were permitted two of these days off. I put out a memo about how I was going to monitor all the dead grandmas. I was not a popular person.
These always fell on ungodly hot days. At one event in Eagan, on a 100-degree day, working the grills, I made numerous runs into the store to get boxes of hot dogs from the walk-in freezer and the continual exposure to both temperature extremes put me in ER with my lungs filled with fluids.
But we never killed anyone and we made the GDP of some developing nations.
And now, on with the Dumpage.
National Night Out
This falls on a different date in every market or state. Here in Minnesota, it’s August 6. In Orlando, it’s in October. One of the stations has a school bus with the center two-thirds of the roof removed to create a platform for a stage or just a party. They’re going to try and get it catered and hit block parties all over town.
Pumpkin Spice Latte
It’s a thing and it hits Starbucks at a TBD time in August. Alpha in Canton turned their group contest into “Win $1000 in Pumpkin Spice Latte,” as did iHeart in Albany.
Since people do have strong feelings about who has the best, you could do what Beasley in Philly did and bracket it.
Slogan Shirts
- Station shirts are still the greatest swag that you can reward someone for listening.
- But it’s getting harder to get people to wear (no less, buy) our Beefy Tee fun run shirts. People just aren’t as into being walking billboards for a brand.
Michael Martin may have been the first to dip his toe in that pool. He couldn’t get college students to wear his shirts so he stuck a message on the back that said something like, “Nope, the other side, idiot.” And people wore them.
About fifteen years ago stations in the Twin Cities started adjusting the designs of the shirts that they sell at the Minnesota State Fair. And they sell insane quantities, again, equal to the GDP of some developing nations.
So they started sticking slogans on the shirts. There was still a logo but you were buying a funny, topical slogan on a good-quality shirt.
Back Packs
In terms of bundling prizes, we’re heading into a season where this often occurs in a receptacle called a backpack. So doing “back to back for a backpack” (two designated songs played in order as the cue) would be a nice alternative to “click and enter your email.”
Olympics
One of the morning shows was discussing Olympic stuff outside of the basic “interview the guy who was her coach when she went to high school” stuff. There are a lot of sports that are kind of outside of the mainstream but at least in large markets, there’s probably a club, maybe at the university, of people who play it. Get them in for a demonstration. Just don’t do shirling.
Night Show Features
What if you did School Duel? Two FB Live cheers from two different schools’ squads. The winner based on social media votes gets pizza from a client.
Sell. This.
Most of you have casinos in/near your market. They have money and they usually love radio.
“Las Vegas” is the world’s largest, continuous Skinner Test. They’ve researched everything from colors to smells to having backs on stools at the slots. One of the things they discovered a long time ago is that people are more comfortable with committing to and doing something if they feel they know how to do it or how it works.
Which is why the casino industry has often done gambling clinics. They’re not afraid of teaching people how craps works because the odds are still in their favor and once a person feels like they’ve figured it out, they’ll probably be there at the rail with some chips, test-driving their knowledge.
So, the next time a casino says, “We want a promotion,” ask them to lend you a croupier and some space and maybe some apps for a “How To Play (Game)” session with some listeners.
Taking It Live… And Not In A Remote Way
One of the clients hit me up for a hot weather idea a couple of summers ago. They were in the middle of an unprecedented heatwave. So, in a stunt that was a precursor to the Wired 96.5/Philly Scabies Bit, they had the jocks talk for three days about how the AC was f’ed up and the studio was like a sauna. On Friday the morning show was nearly passing out.
Seemingly on the spur of the moment, they decided they couldn’t take it anymore and asked if there was a listener who had a pool and would let them relocate the station to it for the day. They had food and beverages arranged ahead of time, they showed up and invited everyone in Salt Lake City to come and beat the heat for the day as they lounged poolside, did games, and broadcast until that evening when, miraculously, the AC was fixed and they could move back to the studio.
Nekkid DJ’s, AE’s, HR… And GSM’s
The next level is what Hot 107.9 in Ft. Wayne did a couple of summers ago. They did the same broken AC premise but this time posted photos of (apparently) nude members of the Oasis Radio Group staff seemingly going about business as usual.
Redneck Spatulas
A tutorial, courtesy of Elzabethany at Hot 99.5 in DC.
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.
