Paige Nienaber’s Midweek Idea Dump: Summer Is A Gas, Man

There was a big concert head-to-head in one of the markets where I consult, and, using subterfuge, smoke, mirrors, and some borrowed bodies from a high school cheerleading squad to bulk out the staff, my client stole the event.

(Speaking of “my clients,” I’m available for cash or barter and would love to answer any questions you might have. Stations that use me effectively use me to help with Sales. Hit me at [email protected])

Anywho, the day after the show, everyone came into work… bouncing. They were fired up and wanted to know when the next opportunity to humiliate the competition would be.

What you want to do is find these opportunities because success is like a drug. It lights you up and makes you crave the next success. String a couple of these together and voilà: you have momentum. It’s hard to beat a station that has momentum.

And now onto the Dumpage.

As we rev up for one of our busiest promotional seasons, keep gas on the radar. In any economy, gas is a hot button. And with some families pinching pennies and choosing to vacation sans air travel, you can make some noise with gas.

Pump And Pause    Done at WiLD in Tampa. Basically, it’s Beat The Bomb. Quit while you’re ahead or risk losing it all when the hose explodes.

Gastober    Done at the Bull in Seattle, and they asked people to listen for Walker Hayes’ “Fancy Like” to play to call and win. And God Bless people who used Robin Thicke for their imaging.

Tank Tag    Know the name of the previous winner and win gas.

Win $1000    “$1,000 in gas” sounds > than “$1,000 in cash.”

Good To The Last Drop    Done with a pickup in Houston. Done with a JetSki on Grand Cayman. Predict when it will clug to a stop, bone dry, and win gas for a year. Speaking of which…

Gas For A Year    “The Last Contest” was the biggest radio contest in US Radio history because it took $5,000 and they created hundreds of sounds-like-a-million-dollars packages out of it. As Newcap in Edmonton did when they figured out the $3200 would buy someone gas for a year. They got a month, a HUGE MONTH out of it. One of the Alpha stations is about to do Beer For A Year.

Adding Some Characters To It    When Kiss in Boise did a gas station siege, they had a dancing, costumed Gas Man playing to the cameras. One of the TV guys actually thanked Keke Luv for coming up with the great visual. KSON in San Diego has Sir Tanks A Lot out in traffic to promote their gas giveaways. In Greensboro, The Wolf created a Texas oil man (Randall Bliss) to voice their gas giveaway imaging; he was outraged (I said OUTRAGED, son!) that they were giving away gas. “Britney needs some Botox, damn it, and it just don’t grow on the trees, you know.”

Pumparazzi, Red Solo Can    In the past, wise stations like Jammin’ in Portland and KZIA in Cedar Rapids have taken hits like “My Humps” and turned them into parody promos, like, My Pumps. You could have a generic 23-second promo that will sound indistinguishable from the promo for some app that corporate is making you run, or you could have Bruno or Brad market the contest for you. (And obviously “My Humps” is not an option.)

Gasp For Gas    Started by the very, very strange minds at The Giant in Thunder Bay. You pump gas for as long as a listener can hold their breath. Finally, something visual BESIDES the long lines, for the TV crews to cover.

For The Longshot     It’s become a cliché joke in Radio about how TV will go out of its way to NOT cover us. Or at least not give us credit. About half the time you do one of these big gas giveaways, you get TV chopper coverage. From 500 feet, all those rollerbanners you so meticulously spent seven hours hanging are not going to show up. I think Wired in Philly was the first station I ever talked into sticking a massive banner on the roof of the gas station. Try editing around that.

For The Closeshot    Anyone: what is the camera angle, the shot, the news ALWAYS gets? The hand sticking the nozzle into the tank. Consequently, whoever you have pumping needs to have little logoed tats or stickers on their hands.

Beat The Pump    What if you got your gas the old-fashioned way: you stole it. Like what 95.7 Jamz in Birmingham (US) did when they “hired an intern named Rodney” who was straight out of juvie. In a theater-of-the-mind methodology, they sent him out with a length of rubber hose to suck fuel out of people’s cars. He had a cell phone and called in as he lurked in the parking lot behind a movie theater (as an example), looking for a car that didn’t have a locking gas cap. The caller got as much gas as he could siphon out before he got busted. I wrote the imaging so that Rodney slowly went blind from the fumes.

Artists’ Gas    We’ve done artists’ cars. Mix in KC did the toilet seat from Jesse McCartney’s dressing room. And Kris Abrams, when he was in Phoenix, did the gas from Brad Paisley’s tour bus. It was presented as the interns going out with a hose and gas cans while Brad was at the station for an interview, and draining the bus. They even got the artist to cut imaging that pondered the question of “Why does my bus always run out of gas after I visit KMLE?” The prize room and conference room were presented as being filled to the ceiling with red containers of gas. Call and win a few. Please. Because everyone is getting sick from the fumes, and the smokers on staff are jonesing. (They gave away… Wait for it… Gas cards. But in a creative way.)

Semantics   Talk in terms of gallons and not dollars. Sounds bigger. Great prize.

Stick & Pump   Probably not the name you want to use on your Smooth Jazz station. But you should use your event to get stickers on cars. Or, to reward people who have stickers on cars with free gas.

We’re Taking Over Another Station    Please don’t do this. This is like “We’re going to walk naked down the street” – so transparent that anyone can see through it. 

Gasbates    I’ve lobbed this out before. The resorts in Wisconsin, which live off the Chicago tourist crowd, started filling up their guests’ tanks before they went home in ‘20. Took a little sting out of the long drive for a summer weekend away. You’re asking people to get in their car and drive to a remote and buy carpet? You might want to offer them something more than just pizza. One of the stations had a trip to a concert about 200 miles away and threw in “gas to get you there and back.” (Again, gas cards, but without saying “gas cards.”)

Who You Should Target    I love Sales. They work their ass off. People say “no” to them all day. And they get no respect. But please don’t rely on them to get your gas station. One of the CPR stations waited over 120 days for the client to make a decision… and they eventually said no. And their competition blew them out of the water with a great gas giveaway while they were waiting. Ya know who is best? Mom and pop gas stations. Because they can do anything they want. No one to tell them what to do. So the question is: what do you have that they’d want? Front row tickets to Taylor Swift with a meet and greet, for their niece and all her friends? A trade trip to the Bahamas? Ask. Cash doesn’t have to be your only option.

We’re Offering The Cheapest Gas Prices    This has been done many times. Open up a bidding war. The station that sells gas for the least amount of money gets trips or concert tickets or free spots. Ten years ago, Dave Ryan did this at KDWB and got it down to negative ten cents a gallon. That’s right. For every gallon they pumped, they had to pay you a dime. SHUT DOWN South St. Paul. Traffic for miles in all directions. They gave the owner a traded trip.

Get Trucked   I’ve thrown this out before. Get a gas truck and drive it around. Set up in neighborhoods and pump gas. This can be done, as witnessed by KGGI in Riverside, where they prowled the streets with the morning guys sitting on the roof dressed as Arab sheiks.

Fear Factor Fill Up     A bit from The Morning After at KOB-FM where they had the listeners do something exciting like reach into a box of spiders to get the privilege of being pumped. Another terrific visual for TV.

F.U. Fridays      In case “Free Gas Fridays” has been done in your locale. And I’m pretty sure it has.

And Whatever You Do, Don’t…        …announce your location until it’s almost time to start. A Mensa candidate PD at one of my old clients promoted their dial position amount and the location for 24 hours. Enough time for the competition to get the next gas station over and do free gas.