As we trudge towards the end zone, the final weekend of Summer 2025, clutching our deflated pool floaties and half-melted popsicles, one way to recap it would be to steal a page from Z-102.9 and let the summer interns do it for you.
Let’s get straight into the Dumpage.
Friday Afternoon
And next Monday afternoon. If there are highways that are annually clogged with people fleeing and then un-fleeing back, it would seem like a great opportunity to message the masses as they flow past. Hmmm… Maybe with a proximity-based beacon. Hit 300,000 people with a text message.
Or go and do what the station in Saginaw did with people heading to up to the Thumb and the campgrounds. They stood on overpasses and waved signs that wished people a great weekened. And then stood on the other side of the bridge on Monday afternoon and welcomed people back.
Or, rent a highway message board. They’re great for concerts and mass migrations.
Early Latte
If you’re a Pumpkin Spice Latte person, then apparently you really are a Pumpkin Spice Latte person. It debuted at Starbucks yesterday. I still don’t get the fascination with the stuff, but people probably don’t get my passion for the joy and majesty of a truck stop chili burger.
You should find an excuse to be out at a coffee shop. Have a tablet, and if people like the station or follow the morning show, you’ll buy their first cup of the season. Really, you should find any excuse to be out, whether you have an excuse or not.
Encourage people to post “Pumpies” of them with their drink. Maybe tweak the colors on the site for the day.
The Forgotten Spice Girl
Kudos and even an accolade to Jennifer Fairbanks in Des Moines, where they’ve tied a jeweler and a purveyor of Pumpkin Spice Latte into a promotion that will award one person who buys the stuff with a BIG diamond. The name? “Pumpkin Spice & A Whole Latte Ice.” Jennifer gets a smiley face on her report card.
When You Have Starbucks Gift Cards Drop In Your Lap
A very wise PD is going to combine them with some gift cards to get Uggs and do Basic Girl Starter Packs. That’s brilliant.
Car Pool Karaoke On Crack
LM Communications was the sponsoring cluster for Pops In The Park in Lexington, KY, with the local orchestra playing the music of Queen. With access to the Jumbotron, Kerri Stein and her crew created this amazing piece of cinematography using the mayor, air staffs, and clients. This is unbelievable.
The Past & Present Concert Series
I don’t know many people who throw their ticket stubs when they get home from a concert. So, one Rock station gets a ton of concert tickets for contesting and wanted to look beyond digital entries and keywords. So, the plan is to announce a past concert, like Van Halen at The Met Center in 1984. The designated caller needs to bring their stub with them when they come to get their tickets.
Spit Take Tuesday
Because people spraying and drooling is Comedy Gold™.
Booking Photo Beauty Pageant
Dave Ryan at KDWB did a contest where you had to match photos of his listeners to crimes that they’d been locked up for. I think the threshold was that you needed to spend at least one night in the joint. It was actually pretty funny. I failed miserably.
A friend/coworker regularly goes through the overnight booking photos on the local paper’s website, picks out hot women, and then sends them out to his database to pick the hottest felon of the previous 24 hours. They’re in the public domain, so it passed his Legal Dept. litmus test.
There’s a weekly feature potential here.
Halloween
Reminding us that Halloween is more than a costume night at your regular club gig is Tony Aldridge at Southern FM in Bristol, UK:
We do a Haunted House night each year, which has now been expanded into three nights. We visit the most haunted House in the TSA and invite listeners to join us. We only have a small number of people each night who have to book and actually raise money for our charity. We end up making a mint for charity, but the most important part is when you bring the content to air. The listeners (and presenters) spend the night there and come directly into the breakfast show the following morning.
The content can be unbelievable. With all this haunted stuff, we can see anything really, but the noises are great, and that is what radio is about. All the recordings from the night are put on air with phoners from people who were there and create amazing radio.
One year, we got the ghost expert who set up all of her toys for spook hunting to ensure you could record audio. The recorder was left in a room when it was sealed off. When we listened back to the audio, you could easily hear a voice saying, “Help me, help me… Somebody help me…” The tension this created on air was brilliant. Obviously, the audio goes online, you hammer the hell out of it, and your internet response becomes massive.
Halloween Front Yard Accoutrement
Many of you work with theme parks and “professional” haunted houses in October. One of the stations, as a sales promotion with one of these clients, is going to take a winner’s front yard and turn it into a cemetery with all of the expected scary decorations and gimmickery. An AWESOME prize that will give the station some valid excuses to talk about the client’s seasonal operation without it coming off as a sales liner.
Storm The Dorms
Y-94 will be making a lot of positive first impressions as kids move into dorms this week. They’ll be out every day at the local campuses with food and goodie bags. Don’t think this one works? They have a staggering seventeen clients sold into this promotion.
Octoberfest
This can kinda slip past unnoticed, so if you have room on the calendar, and if it fits the brand, you should have some fun with it.
Beer is your comedic element. You can feature local beers like Alpha in Anchorage does.
If you have a national contest, $1,000 in beer (or bratwurst) would get more attention than a lot of the monikers being used. I saw a station that had the audience submit photos of themselves as St. Pauli Girl. St. Pauli Guy? Call whoever carries the brand in your market.
Dave Peters, who is a broadcaster in beautiful, tropical Australia, reminds us of Polka Idol, which was Polka mashups of music. ID and win. Kinda like this.
Also done as Hip Hops, which were German versions of hit music.
Free Fall
Hubbard is great at bundling their App contests under monthly umbrellas.
This wouldn’t have to be an App promotion, but could bundle tickets and other giveaways. Fall Music Live?
Leaf Tracker
In some markets, going to drive and look at Fall colors is a “thing”. There are multiple apps and sites that update the foliage color change. Steal and sponsor.
Creepy Dolls
When I was 5 or 6, my parents and older brothers left me with a brick of cheese and some Raisenettes and went to Mexico. They brought back some antique Mexican doll that pretty much tied together every element related to Childhood Terror. I literally didn’t go downstairs to the basement for 13 years. A friend from school actually has a very expensive antique doll that her Grandma had given her. If Jane had been my sister, some night, I would have taken it and buried it in the woods.
So….as you start prepping for late October social media and digital content, take a look at this annual contest by a county museum in Minnesota.
In terms of topics? A few stations have done “My child has an imaginary friend and it scares the CRAP out of me” on the morning shows. So, do it. And then follow up with haunted dolls.
