In 1989, Beasley Broadcasting was courting me and had offered me a job at Kiss 102 in Charlotte. Their selling points? Charlotte was preferable to Minnesota in January. That proved to be correct. Their brand new offices and studios were spectacular. That would also prove to be correct. And that Jerry Clifton was their consultant.
Who?
“He’s just some consultant,” said my PD in Minny. Okay. But they sure had been pretty geeked about him.
I took the job. In my first few weeks, I ran into my competitors at events. Without any encouragement, they went OFF on Clifton and how much they hated him. Huh. I’d worked at stations where even I was kinda vague on who the consultant was, and I certainly didn’t hate him. This impressed me.
(In the early 00’s, I’d been meeting with a new client in Austin and by then was working for Jerry Clifton. The GM went OFF on how, in the ’70s, he’d been working in Houston, and Clifton was at the competitor, and “He said on the air that their request lines had been turned off so they were using the payphone across the street as their studio line. How is that legal?! That’s just irresponsible?! We should have had their license taken away!!” He neglected to include that the other station had beaten his in six months, and he’d lost his job.)
One Jerry Clifton mantra is that “The only reason to do contests is to make promos.” Which is true. And with group contests especially, promos are one of the few ways to actually cut through the wallpaper because these promotions all… sound… the… same.
“Win $1000!” just doesn’t mean anything anymore. So maybe it doesn’t have to be $1,000. One of the stations branded the money as “Win $1,000 In Tacos!” That would get your attention.
99.7 DJX in Louisville framed it as “Win $1,000 In Ceramic Cats!” They pulled the highest engagement in Alpha. Right now, they’re doing another group contest and tied it to Taylor’s new album.
Another Clifton line was “Promos need to be as long as they need to be, and not a second longer.”
This Fugitive promo from The River in Nashville would blow the minds of a lot of programmers. But it was also one of the biggest contests that The River in Nashville has ever done.
Email me at [email protected], and I’ll send you the imaging when Wired in Philly got threatened with a lawsuit over the name “Wild.”
And now, one with the Dumpage.
Weekend Before Thanksgiving Client Bit
One of the stations has a promotional request from O’Reilly Auto Parts. Thanksgiving is obviously a big time period for loading Ellen, Rusty, and Audrey in the Truckster and hitting the road.
What if you did a Winterization Clinic? Roll up and get the tread checked, pressure checked, wiper blades inspected, all the lights working? And then send them off to fend for themselves on the crowded highways. It could be done at a car dealer that has a service bay, too.
Monday Night Football
One of the clusters has a station that needs a club/bar bit. You could do…
NFL Squares In said-market, this is “played” but it might not be where you are. First, people in each get a square on the betting board, right before kickoff cards are dealt that assign numbers to the rows. You win based on 1st Q, half, 3rd Q and end-of-game scores. If this is gibberish, let me know and I’ll explain it.
Arm Chair QB Very simple. Pre-game, get twenty contestants from the crowd. Line them up and give them numbers. Stick a chair dead-center in front of the giant screen. One at a time, they sit down, and make the next call. “Quarterback run.” “Short pass”. Whatever. If they get it right, they move to the end of the line. If they’re wrong, they’re out. Last person playing wins. That you start with a new group of twenty.
Corn Mazes
Halloween contesting and prizing begin with a vengeance this weekend. One of the stations has passes to a local corn maze. These are great family prizes, and any time you can knock the price off some family day out, well, that’s great. The weekend contest will “stick the caller in the middle of the corn maze”. They’ll be presented with the choice of turning right or left. The correct choice gets them the tickets. The wrong choice puts them face-to-face with a chainsaw-wielding maniac. It’s like any game show; people love to see other people get zonked. Or eviscerated in this case.
Bodcasts
It’s traditional in January for stations to do promotions based on the insane caloric intake from the holidays. And I think it’s in our continued interests to have our listeners not die from coronary artery disease.
So why not pair members of the morning show up with listeners and with a fitness client, a healthy food client, and a healthcare provider, and have them document their battles to lose the handles before Valentine’s.
Breastivus
Breast Cancer Awareness Month starts today, and it’s an amazing cause that pretty much touches every family at some point. But it doesn’t have to be just an October “thing”. CBS in San Francisco did a Breastival event with food and music once during the Summer.
December is a time for holiday parties and work gatherings, so one of the stations is going to channel their inner-Costanza and do a fundraising party. Wine. Italian food. A metal pole with a bra on it, and of course, “feats of strength” or games.
Random Acts Of Christmas
JACK 102.3 in London, Ontario, dedicated the Summer to doing a series of good deeds. Clients were able to get tied in, but it stood out from all the ‘thons. They went and did actual, tangible things in the community.
If you are up against Wish in December, this could be something you do during the month. Maybe buying someone’s groceries. Bringing a tree to an elder care facility. Bringing hot chocolate to a fire station. Making cookies for kids at a community center. “Stuff” that has a visual and isn’t just a traditional Christmas charity drive.
No Butts For (Cause)
I don’t smoke, and I don’t judge. But the cigarette display at the gas station here in Scandia is at eye level, and I had really never looked at the prices. Holy crap.
There was an Australian DJ who did “Dry July” and quit booze. She kept track and estimated her savings and donated that amount to a women’s charity.
Now, what if you applied that to cigarettes and one of your smoking personalities quit for a month with the aid of a valued client who specializes in that kind of thing? In a perfect world, they would do it in tandem with a local TV reporter or anchor. And obviously, in addition to the significant cash donation and their better health, we get the added fun of watching them go slowly insane.
Count The Corn
There’s a corn maze up here that is fantastic…and it’s like $18 a ticket. These kinds of seasonal attractions are great prizes. This is a pretty simple but clever way to get people to enter. Post a pic and have people guess the total. Closest without going over wins. And real corn instead of candy would be great too.
See The Gourd, Be The Gourd
One of the many and varied reasons we don’t get the TV coverage we so clamor for is that we think like Radio People, not TV People. Bob the Cameraman from Action 5 can’t shoot the Nutz taking a text and calling back a winner.
He can and might (never a guarantee) shoot Steve-O from the Dave Ryan show rolling pumpkins down the ski jump at Hyland Park, attempting to nail Crisco in the head.
A great pumpkin drop is a thing of beauty. Performance Art at its finest. From WZPL in Indianapolis.
One of the stations inquired about Pumpkin Bowling. This is fine for stuff like remotes. What else could you do if there were an open field next to the client? Take some mannequins dressed as the morning show, stick them out there, and have listeners slingshot orange balloons at them. Hit the morning guy in the gourds and win. Not as exciting as a prize wheel, but it’s all I got.
“What Not To Scare”
The morning show producer at C95 in Saskatoon came up with the name for a costume/makeover contest.
“The Ghosts Of Halloween Past”
For the web, have listeners submit photos of the WORST, most embarrassing things their parents sent them out in, and do a voting competition for a gift card to a local costumer. Conversely, the jocks should be posting some of their kiddy pics. Laura at B-95 in Albany had a mom who was UBER cool with the whole “dressing the kid up” vibe, and she annually posts some of her mom’s best creations.
Listen For Nothing
About to debut somewhere. It’s like when KZIA did The Paragraph That Pays. It mocks the competition’s Song Of The Day. Listen for three seconds of dead air, call, and win $100 four times a day. “But in a PPM world, do we want to denigrate the music brand…” Stop overthinking things and occasionally dare to be stupid.
Bustin’ Makes Me Feel Good
“Where do we find a good local haunt?” came up in an email yesterday. Again, there is no better source than www.shadowlands.com
