First, if you like the Dumpage, there are literally 5,000 sellable ideas in the Encyclopedia of Radio Promotions. The $99 will easily recoup itself the first week you have it. Email me at [email protected].
I’m big on the term “acknowledge.” If pennies are going away or it’s Valentine’s or you’re expecting the coldest weekend since 1947, you kind of need to acknowledge it or risk sounding like you’re visiting from Mars.
You could do a morning show topic or a weekend theme. It could be some social media memes. Or you could change up your web graphic.
Google, which I believe is a fad, is a marginally successful enterprise and they don’t seem to have any challenges with tweaking the logo for things like holidays, birthdays, and remembrances.
When 92.3 NOW-FM was in New York, they were poised to miss Halloween. I understand that that’s pretty easy since the date is changed every year. So I reached out and suggested that they stick a pumpkin in the “0”. The response was one of the most convoluted examples of corporate gobbledegook that I’ve ever seen, citing manpower hours vs digital benefits and on and on.
I sent the logo to my 12-year-old niece and ten minutes later it was returned with the pumpkin. I forwarded it with the note, “My GOD it WAS hard.” I was terminated shortly after. Obviously, I was crushed.
If you are allowed to play with your logo, embrace Googlizing. Why? Why not? It’s Radio, not Plasma Physics.
And now, on with the Dumpage.
Text What’s Next
One of the all-time great remote games was CD Scramble. It was the hook du jour for KSFM in Sacramento to get people hanging around their booth. Basically, it was set up like a casino game and you “bet” what the next song was going to be. (I can explain more if you are interested.) But it always built a crowd and it also trained people on the music.
The next level or new generation of that would be a Programming contest. At either a cue or an appt., you take texts from the audience, predicting what the next song will be. If you texted in “Don’t Want To Fall In Love” by Jane Child and gosh darn it, for some reason the station actually played that, you win.
Pimp Dad’s Car
First, prom is going to fall on just a couple of nights in your town. And every limo within 500 miles WILL be booked. To even have one on lockdown puts you at an enormous advantage in terms of leveraging the teens. You’ll be able to get them to do anything to win it, as happened with KGGI when they did Loco For Limos. As the GM put it, “Actual local, not group, cash contests didn’t get this response.
The next option would be to give a kid (which is why you’d want to start the legal work… now) a Jag or Porsche or SOMETHING better than what he would otherwise be taking her to the dance in for the night.
For the record, me? …a Ford Matador. Which explains why Gretchen excused herself midway through our fancy dinner at Steak & Ale and never returned.
Jerry Miller, Royal D-Bag
No one ever sits down and goes “Let’s create a landmark bit!” Generally, you throw a lot of stuff against the wall and occasionally something sticks.
Steve-O, when he was at 98PXY, asked me to play the part of a d-bag morning show consultant and leave a voice mail for the morning show. So I did. I must have done well because he called and said that the audience was really upset and could I leave another. So I did and took the opportunity to attack Sandy, the beloved cohost on the morning show. I became the most hated person in New York overnight.
It’s kind of like Jason Cage at B-96 and Jo Jo Wright who have created fake, psycho listeners who attack them on social media: people rally to their defense.
I’ve done “Jerry Miller with More Ratings Inc.” maybe twenty times and every time it works: the audience hates me, they become activated in defense of the morning show and I get fired. “Jerry” actually has had to go away because in Ottawa, people hated him so much that they were Google searching him so they could call him at work and take his head off, and they found something on All Access about the bit.
Jerry came back under a new name last week and went after a morning show. This is one of the emails the OM got:
Dear Carla Marie,
I don’t doubt that you and “Tony,” based on the way you’ve talked about this issue and the support you’ve mentioned having from your coworkers and supervisors, have got this under control.
All the same, I figure I might as well add a voice from a viewer, give you a sort of tool to use if it would be helpful. At the very least, I hope it gives you and Anthony some warm fuzzies.
Also, I wanted to yell at that consultant individual. Please feel free to delete the postscript.
You guys are the best.
Thanks!
-Annë
Slogan Shirts
In 2025 it’s increasingly hard for brands to get consumers to wear shirts that are simply blatant advertising for them. It’s required some subterfuge and cloaking to get the logo in there and still have it be something creative that people will want to wear.
Michael Martin, when he was with CBS in San Francisco about 10 years ago, was at his daughter’s college in Santa Clarita and noticed that students were wearing shirts with just weird phrases on them, so he went back to 99.7 NOW-FM and redid their wearables so they would say something cute, have a logo too but too obtrusive… and the audience loved them. And wore them. It was also about the time that iCarly started dressing the stars in similar shirts, a company called Penny Tee’s started churning them out and the viewers bought them by the truckload.
Since then some of the stations have started doing this with phrases like “Keep Boise Boring” and “I Only Love My Bed And Utah. Sorry.” Terry O’Donnell with Pamal in Albany has done that with Kiss and the listeners love them. Something like “Dance Contest Loser” and a logo down and to the left of it. “Hannah Montana Destroyed My Family”? They couldn’t print enough of them. And that’s the sign of a great t-shirt. People want them and will wear them.
St. Patrick’s Day
Up next is St. Patrick’s Day
St. Patrick’s isn’t as food-driven as the Super Bowl, but if you have a talent who knows how to make Shepherds Pie, or Corned Beef & Cabbage, great. Or do what Rob and Joss did with the Superbowl and have a cook from an Irish restaurant in to do it.
The other element you could play with is Irish Dancing. This was brilliant. Get a local dance club to learn a song from your playlist, or, could you learn and try it. Like Ruby Carr with ballet. The sign of a TRULY great talent is that they’re not afraid to look dumb.
St. Pump-it’s Day
The Max Media stations in Denver once did Gallontines and were all over town doing free gas. So, why not declare that March 16th is St. Pump-it’s Day in honor of Patrick’s best friend from college, Michael O’Pumpit, and do some gas?
Munch Madness
Social media is all about kids, pets, and food, and people’s opinions about them seem to make up a lot of the content you see on places like Facebook.
BEN in Philly has done Mutt Madness in March. Since 90% of social media content are puppy videos, then maybe this is something you don’t want to ignore. Tell me that people wouldn’t barrage you with pet pics if you asked.
Conversely, Audacy in St. Louis did Food Fights and every week battled it out between different genres of local restaurants like Chinese, steaks, Mexican, and wings. Sponsored and random voters got picked for gift cards.
Crock Stars
There are some regions that are most definitely Crock-centric. Minnesota is one place. So is Cincinnati. Hubbard is hosting a recipe contest sponsored by a grocery store.
Community Cruiser
This came up during an auto dealer meeting on Tuesday. It was initially done by CBS in Pittsburgh where they had a wrapped and branded SUV from a client that was available for charities and organizations that needed an extra set of wheels for their annual event.
You could go to the site and for free, reserve it. Then a station employee would show up day-of and help pick up stragglers from your 5K, or put out cones along the route or pick up donations from dropoff locations. Whatever your event’s specific need was.
Cash Or Dash
One of the best car contests of the past couple of years was Newcap’s “Gone In Sixty Seconds” which is pretty much the way it sounds.
- You register your name and where you are on weekdays during certain periods of the day.
- You listen for your name.
- If you hear it, you run as quickly as you possibly can outside and tag the giveaway car that has crept up and is idling. If you get out there and slap the car before it speeds away after a minute, you’re entered in the draw for the car.
The cash version of that would be to have a DJ standing outside, next to a running van, with a $100 bill in his/her hand. The listener has a set amount of time to hear their name, dash, and grab.
Final Four Packs
In one market, Buffalo Wild Wings is asking for something for March Madness, so you might want to have someone calling whoever places their buys where you are.
Froggy in Santa Rosa and Mix in Cincy did great jobs of creatively bundling their Valentine’s prizes. IF you had four decent prizes to giveaway around the tourney, there’s your name. Then you just need a methodology. Having people guess scores, would be alright.
Another option would be to do a version of “Dribble Till You Drop.” You have one of the talent with a basketball, put taped boxes around their feet so you can see if they moved and they start dribbling the ball on Facebook Live. Listeners guess how long they’ll be able to dribble without missing or moving their feet. Closest without going over, wins.
Group Contests
Yes, they do in fact all sound the same. So an OM “somewhere” may have found a way to fix his upcoming promotion:
I’m taking a page from Paige and Robin Hood and doing “The Vigilante” – hacks in because he hates the little guy always gets overlooked and plays his own game to give them a chance. Think Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb. The character is great – our Production Director is voicing with a voice disguiser.
So… Looking For More “Dates”
March is Frozen Food Month. Yes. That has serious potential for boredom, but so do school lunches and KyXy had some fun with that. Because everyone had a favorite school lunch growing up. And since TV dinners were a big part of our childhoods, maybe there’s a bracket. Maybe there’s not.
March 1 is National Pancake Day. Boom. Bracket.
March 8 is International Women’s Day. That was easy.
It’s Free Cone Day with DQ on the first day of Spring, March 20.
And Starbucks Day is March 31. The anniversary of the first one in Seattle in 1971. I’m not into it but if you are, you really are.
