Welcome to March! One of the lessons of COVID was that brackets worked outside of March. We discovered that if we asked people’s opinions about food or pets or services, they would most assuredly give them via a click.
And we learned that we could make money off selling these things. And really, a bracket is just a reflection of social media. If you get on Facebook and say that El Loro is the best Mexican food in the Twin Cities, people will agree or disagree.
Just to see what would happen, I went on my hometown’s social media and asked what people’s favorite school lunch was, and the thread literally ran for three years. So, for back to school, I suggested it to my client in San Diego. They got it sponsored by a grocery store, and five random voters got giftcards to the sponsor.
They brought it up the next year with Back To School Fashions, sponsored by a mall.
Audacy in St. Louis did Food Fights with week-long brackets in different restaurant genres, ie, Chinese, Burgers, Barbecue, Craft Beers.
The Beasley stations in Philly have killed it with food brackets, and their station at the Shore did it with a very local-specific beverage.
Y94 in Fargo does it every August as Dogust with, well, dogs.
In March, they do it with cats. And why wouldn’t you?
For some great digital content that you can sell, maybe a bracket is in your future.
And now on with the Dumpage:
The Beauty, The Majesty, Of A Fake Backstage Broadcast
The first step in your recovery is to admit that most radio station broadcasts from concerts are about as exciting as listening to a remote from a car dealer.
B-96 in Chicago once had Lady Gaga. With every other station in Illinois and northern Indiana playing by the rules and not starting their horrible broadcast from the United Center until 3 pm, B sent Nikki into the area with a cell phone, and she painted a picture of roadies and catering and soundchecks and costuming. She took the listeners where they wanted to be: backstage. Amazing. And totally staged.
Lepretots
One of the morning shows has a $250 grand prize for “something digital” involving St. Patrick’s Day. Drawing a green four-leaf clover on your baby’s cheek (along with your music position and ‘brought to you by Anytime Checking Cashing, now in Anoka! Se habla Espanol!’), and posting for a voting contest would be fun.
Or do Lepre Cons. Same concept, but with adults in some greenery, but the caveat is that they have to have served at least one night in jail. One of the CHRs did something similar a few years ago, and the PD, who believes that his audience is Amish, said, “That’s ridiculous! None of our listeners have been in jail!” They got over 300 entries.
Prom With A Twist
The whole ‘win a date to prom with a DJ’ bit has been so overdone, and usually poorly. If you want to do this, call me. I’ve got a hook. But what if you spun this and had your morning guy or girl take a teacher to prom? Fact: every school has a cool teacher. Have the students nominate a teacher who is single and maybe has never gone to prom. Do a limo. Bring some of the students along. Again, this stuff is only an excuse to be out at these big events.
Two Word Tango
Van Harden at the gi-mazing WHO in Des Moines is one of the few US morning shows intelligent enough to monitor what the BBC shows do, and one of the contests they’ve used successfully is Two Word Tango. He shared the music if you’d like it.
How it works: We all sit around the mics and play a game. Each time there’s a small gap in the song, we have to say the name of someone famous. As we go around the team, the song speeds up, hence making both the gaps and the length between the gaps shorter. This means that we, as a team, rarely get to the end of the song before someone fluffs it.
The Biggest (power bill) Loser
There is no place where climate change is more evident than the UK, where they have been experiencing seriously freaky weather for going on the third year. One of the stations has a sales initiative to promote conservancy. What if you did a promotion where ten families submit their most recent gas/electric bill? 60 days later, they submit the most recent bill. The family that has saved the most gets their rent paid. Turn it into a reality show. Highlight the families.
The Paragraph That Pays
One of the PDs reached out to me to ask about this. This was done at KZIA in Cedar Rapids, where they have a long and storied history of doing really cool bits. The contest pretty much mocked what their competition was doing. You went to the website, printed out the paragraph that pays, and that was what you had to say to win. It read something like: “KZIA 102.9 plays the most music in Cedar Rapids. I didn’t have to call some 800 number and compete against people in 3000 other cities with odds that are equal to getting hit by an asteroid while on a date with Bigfoot. Nope. I’m local, and I won. You can too. Only with the Paragraph That Pays.”
3D Radio
AFD ’09 in Kingston at K-Rock. From Darryl Kornicky: set up the April Fools Prank during the first week in March by “tweaking our 3D Transmitter” and playing some sonically perfect tunes. Audience believed it weeks leading into us Going full time 3D 24/7. I have 50 calls from audience believing it was the greatest invention ever, and that they never knew their Car Stereos were capable of delivering such amazing sound. All you had to do to hear it was turn up your radio, any radio, to hear the full 3D experience. Hook, line, and sinker
Car Endorsements
Tommy Kramer had a great line: “When you get on the air and say ‘My friends at Adams Toyota…’ you’re listeners know they’re not your friends. They’re people who are paying you to pretend that you’ve used and enjoyed their products or services. They’re not that stupid.”
True story: a friend unprompted told me that “(DJ) is such a whore. Every time I listen to him, he’s talking about some other endorsement deal.” This person isn’t in Radio and picked up on this.
Also, you have to remember that no one cares that someone they already consider to be overpaid and over-privileged gets to drive something for free. It’s like DJ’s broadcasting from the Grammys.
The best car endorsement thing in YEARS was done at Hot in Houston: Mommy Bloggers. They got five women who were actual damn listeners of the station, and gave them each a car to drive for the summer. And blog about.
Instead of hearing a DJ talk about how great their free perk is, the audience read testimonials from peers, highlighting how this car had made their everyday life just a little easier.
So… One of the stations has an auto company that would like their PD/Afternoon Guy to endorse a car.
Said-air talent has been driving one of their cars for eight years and is actually a big fan of the company and their service follow-through.
Said-advertiser did not want just a standard “This is Paige Nienaber, and when my friends at Yugo asked me…” shlocky spiel.
The original idea (but can’t be done because of web constraints) would be a series of romantic videos of the PD out, vacationing, on dates, commuting, with his true love: his car. To the tune of either “Long May You Run” or “I’m In Love With My Car.” Like the “Will It Blend” YouTube series.
What we’ve decided on was a Deep Thoughts By Jack Handy series of vignettes. Like:
THEY SAY YOU SHOULDN’T TEXT AND DRIVE… THE THOUGHT NEVER OCCURRED TO ME. … I’D NEVER TREAT MY (BRAND) THAT WAY…. SHE ALWAYS GETS MY FULL ATTENTION.
THEY SAY CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS… QUITE FRANKLY… YOU COULD DINE ON MY DASHBOARD. WHICH IS REALLY NICE… CAUSE THE CUP HOLDERS REALLY CONVEINENT… AND IT GIVES A WHOLE NEW MEANING TO DINE N DASH.
I WAS LISTENING TO RADIO… AND GOT INSPIRED BY A SONG…. SO I DROVE MY CHEVY TO THE LEVEE… AND IT WAS $6 FOR PARKING.
“I took my Chevy out on a Friday night. We had dinner. Went for a long drive. And we went home together. Do you think I should tell my bike?”
A New Spin. Literally. On The Dollar Bill Game.
One of the PD’s had a contest name. A great contest name. Which kind of proves the point that lots of great promotions start with a great name. And then you just figure out how to make it work.
Without tipping the name or the prize, the idea will be a version of the dollar bill game without the million-to-one chance of anyone winning. Everyone who wins on the air, when they come to pick up their prize, has to bring a bill with, say 9,8 and 7 in any order in the serial number, when they come to the station. They’re then qualified for the grand prize, where they’ll bring their bill to a final event, write their name on it, and all of the bills will go into one of those cash cubes where the morning guy will be, blindfolded. Bills start spinning, the morning guy counts back from 98, plucks a bill out of the air, they’ll stop the wind, he’ll take off his blindfold and read the name. That will be who wins the (blank).
Additional qualifiers are done through remotes and appearances.
FNL
One of the stations that has an actual Night show is looking for something that they can market him with during the warm summer months. I believe their exact phrasing was “He’s not doing us any good sitting in a nice air-conditioned studio.”
Elizabethany at Hot in DC goes and does her afternoon show on Fridays at vibing outside places like bars and ballgames.
The night show version of that is Friday Night Live, that’s been done at WPGC in DC, Wild in SFO, and Power in Miami. Basically, the show just bails at 7 and hits the road, going to wherever people might be. In the past. In SFO, it was anything from rooftop parties to go-kart places to community pools to cruising strips in San Jose. Put some people on the air, post some photos, and move on.
VERY sponsorable by any number of clients.
