One of my Hubbard clients had an odd request: they have an advertiser that wants to sponsor a PM Drive feature, but not weather or traffic. Okay, that still leaves tons to play around with, because if you haven’t noticed, it’s summer.
With Summer comes moms who are trying to find things to fill the void left by their kids’ schools. On a budget. So what if you did “Mommy’s Little Helper” and offered continually updated lists of free things that parents can do with their children to burn up some Summer hours. What’s not to love about that as a resource and feature?
And now on with the Dumpage.
Hair Salons & Mattress Places
I saw “Bed Head” for the first time as a fax contest in about 1990. Take an unflattering photo of your spouse waking up, send it in, and win some kind of ticket package. A station-to-remain-nameless has some ridiculously nice beds to give away and is considering this for a gallery promotion.
Also, never forget that for Back To School, stations like Summit in Greenville have done free haircuts… and it got a huge response. Speaking of which…
The Best Back-to-School Promotion Of The Last Decade
From the very cool Hot 100.5 in Norfolk where they totally ignored my suggestion to “Just stick it in the VIP Club.” Client loved it, the crowd loved it, and there was a video payoff.
First Crack At Halloween
One of the stations was working on a Halloween request from the local theme park, which already has a pretty amazing list of stuff that that have going on, including, wait for it, Coffin Races. Like bed races, but teams racing with a coffin with a team member in it.
The best Halloween event name in the past two years seems to be Zombie Prom from one of the stations. It’s not Scaryoke as part of your regular Saturday night club gig, but what is? There are people who would attend pretty much anything if you stuck “zombie” in front of it.
And if you want to be in corn, time is running out to hit up your local maze to be part of the pattern.
Add “Virgin” Sales Promotions
Let’s see if that gets past your filter.
It’s amazing in 2025 that there are still people who have never been to Burger King, like one of the co-hosts. So she invited all of the other BK Virgins down, and she’d spring for their first Whopper. They packed the place.
A Sales Assistant in Sacramento had never sat on Santa’s lap. So it became a morning show bit, and they ended up finding a dozen adult listeners who, for whatever reason, had never had the chance or been allowed to enjoy this rite of childhood. Another morning did it with people who’d never been to a theme park.
There are so many things, often coming from Sales, that you could stick “virgin” on. Attending a rodeo or NASCAR race. NFL game. Fireworks. Male strippers. Walmart.
Limos
We tend to forget that for the average person stumbling around out there, riding in a limo is a very, very rare occurrence, ie, consequently it is unique and very very special. I worked at a station where we would go through bursts of just lots of concert ticket contesting, with a competitor who would have equal numbers of the same tickets for giving away.
So all winners qualified for limo and dinner before the show at some place that was good and that we had trade with. And the limo was traded.
Win/Win. And our giveaways sounded, if not bigger, definitely cooler.
One of the stations has a unique client problem. There is a major event where up to 30,000 people will be coming to a market for a couple of days. There is an outlet mall just ten minutes from the event that would like to lure them over to drop some money.
Answer? Free limo runs from the event and back. People will go for the free limo… and then sit there for an hour for the ride back.
And it’s being done for mentions because limo companies do need all the help they can get.
Windependence Day
A possible name if you’re one of the stations heavily invested in tons of ticket giveaways for the summer.
Rainy Days
It’s been a really wet week in the Twin Cities, and my friend Kelly has been stuck trying to find something to do with her kids now that school is out. During COVID, stations created coloring sheets that you could print off their social media. Maybe this is something that you keep in reserve for rainy days.
T-Mobile
Back To School came up in a meeting on Wednesday. You should reach out to T-Mobile and partner with their backpack giveaway that they do every August. It could be your way of acknowledging BTS with someone else’s money.
Treehouses
One of the stations has some home designers who are looking for promotions. When in doubt, start with “kids” and “pets”. So, how about them designing and building either a backyard playhouse or a dog house?
Fly in Albany did it with a treehouse. This is a contest that I would have entered:
The Fly Morning Rush presented “Extreme Makeover: Treehouse Edition.” The promotion targeted kids in the area who were heavily involved in their community as a thank-you to them for all their efforts to give back. A new station email was created in which listeners could send their nominations of either their own children or other children in the community they thought deserved this.
They were asked to explain what the children did and include a picture of their trees where the tree house would go. The top five candidates were all chosen based on their stories. Each of the five candidates was visited so a construction expert and a horticulturist could examine trees for strength, age, and viability. When the family was chosen, they were sent in a limo to the Great Escape Indoor Lodge & Water Park for the whole weekend while the tree house was built (same style as the TV show).
Fly found a contractor to build the playhouse, which ended up resembling a real house in their tree. Inside, there was a TV, a video game system, chairs, and a side for each of the two children themed with their favorite things. Mucho press showed up and it was a great opportunity for the station AND the family was beyond thrilled.
Body Oddity
Morning shows: what kind of freakish thing can YOU do? This is Dave Ryan’s nephew, who can locate and dislocate his shoulder at will.
Bother Your Father
Radio is great at rediscovering old methodologies, bits, and features. So it’s nice to see a “thing” from about 1994 come back at a station to remain nameless. A caller will be conferenced with their unsuspecting father, and they’ll have 30 seconds to get him to lose his temper.
Most Father’s Day “stuff” started popping this week. One of the stations has the Star Wars of laser tattoo removal. What if you helped a listener give her (assumed) father the greatest gift ever of having the lower back art from Spring Break finally erased?
Grill Your Dad
But not in a hibachi kind of way, from an iHeart PD:
Every Dad wants a new grill, every daughter wants concert tickets – this year we’re hooking them both up. AND you finally get answers to all the questions you’ve wanted to ask Dad for years now. With Grill Your Dad. Head to mix961.com and tell us the three questions you’ve been dying to ask your Dad. If we choose you, you’ll get to ask your Dad those three questions while he’s hooked up to a lie detector! If he answers truthfully, you both win.
Selfie #9
With so many stations taking texts instead of calls, what about making a selfie included with it, as the hook? It would also allow you to have a gallery of happy winners’ faces.
“Where Are You At 10:02?”
One of the stations is looking to revamp some of its midday/at-work features. Star in Pittsburgh has randomly asked people to shoot and share what they’re doing at that moment while at work, home, school, wherever. Kind of painted a mosaic of life with their audience. What if that was a daily social media feature?
