Paige Nienaber’s Midweek Idea Dump: Promo De Mayo

Before we dive into the Dumpage, you really should know about an amazing public service campaign that Jeff Berry has implemented at his Cumulus cluster in Albuquerque.

It seems like just about every Hallmark Holiday has some level of drinking, and as a responsible broadcaster, for all of these dates, he’s worked out a program with a client to pay for people’s Uber rides home.

What a concept: concern over whether our listeners live or die.

And now on to some Dumpage that will probably involve drinking: Cinco de Mayo.

• Parade? You should absolutely be in it. You could also do what iHeart in Poughkeepsie just did, but in reverse. For St. Patrick’s Day they entered a Cinco de Mayo float and handed out hundreds of jars of salsa. They were very apologetic. Their calendar got screwed up. In fact, I’d have people decorate their cars and do a drive around town blasting festive music.
• Audacy in Chattanooga did a bracket thing in May 2020 that was a search for the best Mexican restaurants in town.
• 96.1 NOW-FM in San Antonio is doing a Taco bracket right now.
• Ask me to, and I’ll walk you through “Margarita In Your Pants.”
• Your weekend contest should somehow be themed around it. It’s a Saturday this year. Having the promo voiced by the worm at the bottom of a bottle of tequila would be funny.
• “Worms Gone Wild” is either a club gig or a video or a weekend theme.
• Speaking of weekend contests, you could do an “M&M Weekend:” Movies and Mexican (food). Go on YouTube and snag some Spanish-dubbed popular films. Air a clip every hour and the first person to call in and ID the flick gets whatever movie passes you have.
• You can stick “Cinco” in front of pretty much anything. Cinco de Tickets. Cinco de Flicko. Cinco de Clubs. Cinco de Brazilian Exchange Students. Pinko de Mayo.
• Speaking of which, Pink kinda gets shuffled into the background because of Taylor. It’s a huge tour. Play the PPM game and load up giveaways on the 5th
• One of my favorite Wild/San Francisco weekend promotions was “Mexican Or Not?” They named an artist, like Ricky Martin or Shakira or Gloria Estefan and you had to call in and say whether they were Mexican Or Not to win. About to be done as Canadian Or Not for Nickelback tickets.
• Mexican Idol? Very simple. Find a karaoke company that has lyrics printed in Spanish. Have listeners warble along in Spanish to things like “Old Town Road” or “Friday”. 
• Post-Sacramento, it might be difficult to get a jalapeno eating contest past corporate, but you should try. Power in Miami had someone do that for Superbowl tix It was amazing. And very visual when they were regifted onto the sidewalk. 
• World’s Largest Margarita? Anytime you stick “World’s Largest” in front of an item or event, you’re 50% more likely to get press. Kiddy pool would be necessary. 
• How about doing an “S.O.B. Party”? South Of The Border trips for people who win various contests. And South Of The Border could be California for stations in Portland.
• One of the stations was going to try and pull off a “big stunt” a couple of years ago and flip to all Spanish. As I explained, in 1978, that would have been huge. There are now Spanish stations IN every market. They did it anyway. No one cared.
• Random Acts Of Mariachis. KKMG in Colorado Springs did this and visited offices all day with musicians.
• The Human Pinata. Old bit. Did it first at a club with Mancow in 1992. We actually hung an intern from a crane. You could just as easily Velcro prizes to an intern and have blindfolded listeners beat them off. They did it at KOB-FM in Albuquerque with Danny Vigil covered in balloons. Beat him, pop one and win what’s inside. 
• Z-102.9 in Cedar Rapids has their VERY Central U.S. airstaff doing TOH ID’s in Spanish.
• When Jeff Kapugi was doing Country in St. Louis, he stuck big ass cowboy hats on photos of artists, obscuring about 90% of their face, and you had to ID them for prizes. Could be done with sombreros. 
• NOW in San Francisco had backstage passes for One Direction. They got a large glass jar and filled it with a thousand or so Hot Tamale candies. Using high/low, they got about a week out of it before a listener got the total.
• Mexican telenovelas are a riot. You should do your own.
• Imaging. I have oodles™ from the late, great and sadly destroyed 102 Jamz in Orlando and Live in SFO.
• Cinco do Masko was a masquerade ball held by Hot 98.1 in Greenville.
• Petco. Call them. Nationally they’ve done Chihuahua Races at their locations. WQYK in Tampa did one in the past. This is a race (not Tampa’s).