We in radio tend to operate in our own little universe of time and space. The rest of the world is a little more proactive.
One of the stations sent me a request for Radio/Digital ideas for a chain of Pumpkin/Christmas patches/attractions. “They start planning for (Halloween) right after the 4th of July.”
This would be a reminder to hit these big patch-maze places ASAP and get in their face a month before the other stations in town think about it.
And now on with the Dumpage:
For The True Radio Geeks
If you don’t follow James Cridland, you should. I had never heard of hospital radio.
Jay Kruz had an idea for public bathroom radio, which, if you think about it, with opioid constipation and old men’s prostate problems, could be a whole mess’a TSL.
Mug, Shots
In a perfect world, there are lots of people sitting in cubicles listening to you for 8-9 hours at a time. And since we’re always looking for different ways to engage and connect with them, what if you had a promotion where listeners send in photos of their coffee mugs? Post one a day with a little shout to the listener, their workplace, and co-workers, and a client would sponsor and maybe provide a few free cups of their product to the daily winner.
Family Four Packs
I’ve always tried to steer away from what other stations do. To paraphrase Jerry Clifton, “If everyone is doing something, don’t do it, or do it so remarkably that you cannot miss it.” And that can be applied to Win It Before You Can Buy It and Family Four Packs.
Stations don’t do Family Four Packs because Fred Jacobs did a strategic overview of contesting, appointment time listening, and evolving demographics and proclaimed that all prizes should be done in fours. We do them because the circus gave us 800 tickets, and WTF are we supposed to do with 800 circus tickets?
102 Jamz in Orlando had that kind of Tsunami of tickets and did “Tickets For The Whole Family.”
DJ: You won, what’s your name?
Caller: Paige
DJ: You’ve won tickets for the entire family to the Central Florida Fair. How many do you need?
Caller: Well, my wife Destinee, her 7 kids from previous relationships, and my side piece Brandi.
DJ: That’s great. Ten tickets are waiting for you at the station!
The GM suggested that people would lie. No, really? I pointed out that they hadn’t paid for this crate of tickets, so who cares? He agreed. And Jamz sounded way larger than the Cox competitor that was doing Family Four Packs.
Redundant Tally Marker
I saw this as a Facebook Live end-of-airshift thing by a morning show. The host has a dry erase board and keeps track of the co-host’s repetition of phrases. On Friday, it was “I hate my life,” which she said five times. It was NOT mean-spirited and was kind of funny.
Morning shows are like sitcoms. The characters have quirks and habits and things about themselves that you can play with. At FRESH-FM in DC, with the Tommy Show, it was the Kelly Collis Monogamy Tracker. Wired in Philly had “Evil Clown Sightings.” V in Atlanta had “Accidentally Let Solicitors Into The Building.”
Hair (not the Broadway musical)
Hair is a much-overlooked promotional venue. Which is kind of sad because it’s pretty universal.
First, for Back To School, the Summit stations do a day of free haircuts at participating salons. And it blows up. Who doesn’t want to get their kid a free haircut right before school returns?
KZIA in Cedar Rapids once did DMV Makeovers and set up outside the license bureau, and fixed and tweaked people’s hair before it got immortalized for a decade.
They also did “Daddy/Daughter Hair Training” and brought in stylists to teach dads how to do their kids’ hair, which is kind of an invaluable life lesson.
If you need charitable donations and you need them fast, the whole “If we hit our goal, I’ll shave my head” bit is Gold. Sarah Pepper raised $50,000 for Leukemia research.
And for concerts and other outdoor events, one of the Stingray stations had a mobile salon that they would set up on the plaza. A mirror. Some hairspray. Just the basics so women could do a quick touch-up on a humid, windy day.
Football
One of the stations has a client that came to the table with a sinful amount of money and wanted to be tied in to that market’s NFL franchise. I told said-PD about the $10,000 Run Back contest, they took it to the client, and they got the buy.
Very simple. It’s an insured contest that is sponsored by the client. You do NOT want to do RTW at their locations. 99% of the time, it’s someone who has never even heard of your station who gets picked. (And you doubt that God has a sense of humor and irony?)
Every week, a winner gets tickets to the home game that Sunday, and if the home team runs the first kickoff back for a touchdown, they win $10,000.
Hot Dogs/Kids
I went to a festival on Friday where it was all right to bring your pets, and one of the booths had a water bowl set up for dogs to stop and get refreshed. Even though it was temperate and nice, there were always some people and their pets there to cool off. This is simple and requires a bowl and some water. Do it.
If you DO hit some absurd periods of heat, instead of just running a PSA for the SPCA reminding idiots not to leave their pets and kids in their cars, why not do what Hot in Fredericton did last Summer. This is their press release:
Joe Arsenault from the Morning Hot Tub with Joe, Benny & Jay sat in the black HOT jeep for half an hour today, to raise awareness about the dangers of leaving pets and people in vehicles on hot sunny days. Joe wanted to experience the heat and the effects on his body, after witnessing and reporting to the authorities a dog left in a parked car on a hot day this past weekend in Fredericton.
Arsenault says, ‘There is never an excuse to leave a dog in a vehicle that is parked with the windows open a crack during the summer. The dog suffers because it can’t sweat and I thought that at least my sitting in the HOT jeep would show people what a serious experience this can be for a person, let alone a dog.’
St. John Ambulance volunteers were also on hand to look after Joe when he got out of the Jeep. The temperature inside the vehicle reached 47 degrees Celsius (116 Fahrenheit). His symptoms included shortness of breath, a headache, and exhaustion. The Morning Hot Tub with Joe, Benny & Jay has a close relationship with the Fredericton S.P.C.A and were more than happy to help out with raising awareness about the danger of leaving animals and people in vehicles on hot days.
Caller Ten Gets Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……
One of my favorite PDs just joined a really large station and has vowed, “As God is my witness, I’m going to do away with boring ‘roll the touchtones’ contesting.” This, from Laura Daniels in Buffalo, would be different:
“Caller 10 Wins….Maybe”
I solicit caller #10 and tell them a secret word (today, it was pineapple) off the air.
Live, I tell them I’m gonna hang up on them, and they have ONE SONG to try to call back and get through again. I encourage everyone else who wants tickets to call and jam up the phone lines. I pick up, they say “I’M BLOCKING (CALLER 10)!!!” because if she (today, Sarah) doesn’t get through with the secret word during the song, we pick another caller, with another word, and do it again. Sarah could use as many phones as she wanted.
Today, first day, we cycled through about 8 or 9 “I’m BLOCKING Sarah!” before Sarah actually did get through, yelling “PINEAPPLE!! PINEAPPLE!!!”
Her husband turned out to be a huge fan and she almost peed when she did get through.
Can’t believe it worked. But it did.
School Supply Drives
Stuff The Bus was first done in approximately 1935, and it’s always worked. A DJ living in a tent on top of a school bus until it’s filled will always be a home run.
In Panama City, Island 106 got a couple of hundred backpacks and told the audience what they needed. So I drop off a calculator, and it goes into a backpack. Those were then given to low-income kids.
These are great for clients who “want something more than a remote.”
With a lot of teachers having to raise the supplies themselves, then incentivize it. I don’t see many of you being able to get this approved, but 96.1 in San Antonio basically won Back To School in 2019. The teacher who had the biggest collection won a chance to go skydiving.
You have limo trade? Cool. The three teachers who raise the most get limo rides to/from the first day of classes.
Or a pizza party for his/her class. Pizza: the most readily available to Radio food… EVER.
Elementary School Films
They all had a distinct “sound” to them. So Power 96 in Miami used that feel for some Spring Break imaging.
And Drake Donovan created this masterpiece on how to win Star Access passes at Star in Pittsburgh.
