When I got to Kiss 102 in Charlotte, one of the first things I did was to change my job title. I wasn’t the Promotions Director, I was the Director Of Fun ‘n’ Games. It just seemed more all-encompassing and also kind of a litmus test for what I wanted to achieve.
I took the title to San Francisco and then on to New World Communications, where I swapped the “Director” for “VP”.
And it wasn’t just something to apply to what the station did between the songs, but it was also a goal for in the halls. Because fun stations make fun product.
I learned this from Doyle Rose, who personified Fun ‘N Games, when I was at Emmis in the Twin Cities. He was a brilliant creator of a fun work environment. In the summer, we had a staff boat party on Lake Minnetonka. No spouses. Just the staff bonding.
In the winter, it was a bowling party at a bar called Elsie’s in North Minneapolis. It was a ball (sorry), and management made sure to pair people up with other employees with whom they might not get a lot of interaction. Like the evening phone screener and the morning guy.
I took that idea with me to San Francisco, and one of my first acts was to do a staff bowling party down in San Mateo. Cost? Zero. The price was that the Business Manager and I had to sit through a seminar on The Joy Of Bowling Leagues.
Bowling is great because everyone can seemingly do it, and even if you’re not a pro, you still have fun. I’ve seen staff golfing days that were just kind of a bunch of people who loved it and were great at it, and the rest of the staff who were just kind of there and suffering through the experience.
Kris Cegla, who was probably the best promo person that Clear Channel in the Twin Cities ever had, did an innertubing party every July for the summer hires out at Apple River. It was on trade, and it provided the kids a break in the middle of an insane period of nonstop and unrelenting events.
No one got into radio to fill out TPS Reports. They went into radio for the Fun. And now more than ever, radio needs some fun.
Now on with the Dumpage.
Bitch Clock
Rant lines have been a part of Radio for a while. With the new MLB pitch clock, there ya go. A rant line with a PPM feel to it. Call and get 8 seconds to sound off on poor tippers, pot holes, flight delays, and Mitch Gaylord’s acting career.
As Seen On TV
Goose with Cumulus in Colorado Springs once did a video series of testing the products that you see in TV infomercials.
Scotch and Britta with JACK-FM in Fargo have created a contest where you win cheap products you see on TV, and they’ve created videos for some of them, like Zorpads.
Earth Day
Thanks to Live 88.5 in Ottawa for reminding us that it’s April 22nd. Like I lobbed out last week, “Green” is the new catch term. I’d redo the website so that it appears to be “printed” on a tree. Or the background scheme is green. Or the template is a long view of the earth from space. Maybe rotating. Google changes its logo for pretty much every opportunity that comes along. Last Saturday, they went all black because of the Power Hour campaign.
Want to get on CNN? Find a company in your market that does solar panels and set up an array for the day in the parking; run on the sun all day.
Mothers Day
A station somewhere has a diaper crawl planned. If you haven’t had a mall full of people screaming at infants to crawl faster, you haven’t lived. Somewhere, a station has a mall that will pony up some jewelry for what they referred to as “a Newlywed Game kind of contest”.
My thought? The Newly-Law Game. A young woman and her new mother-in-law are competing against two other pairs of women in a test of knowledge about each other.
Summer Interns
- Again, if you’re allowed to, have some and start recruiting… now
- Polite is nice. Shy isn’t. You want to screen for people who are outgoing and aren’t going to hide in the van.
- Look for people who have skillz™. Like Intern Gabby at KZIA, who could play sax and rap.
- There is NOTHING wrong with giving them street names and little profiles on the website. If anything, it adds some character to stations.
- Grill them for what’s happening in college. I heard about Beer Pong a full year before mainstream society, courtesy of a promo kid in Rochester, NY.r
Moth Week
Shark Week has rapidly become part of our culture. People plan around it so they don’t miss an episode. So God bless the silly people at KOB-FM in Albuquerque who once parodied it with Moth Week, a tribute to an annual invasion of the flying critters in that city.
Carny-oke
One of the stations has a mess ‘o tickets to a big Fair. Always look at the event that you have prizes for and dissect it for elements that you can play with. Which is why they’re going to get a guy, fill his mouth with marbles, and have him sing songs as a carny. ID the song and win the tickets.
Binge Listening.
Radio is really good at stumbling on and rediscovering old contests and features. Like in 2010 when NOW in NY started CFMs (Commercial Free Mondays) and, very quickly, versions of this ended up on 900 radio stations.
The point of promotions is to stand out. So if more stations than just yours are doing long, long sets of music, you need a better name than theirs.
Wild in SFO was Stopless Music. It cut through. In Charlotte, the competition was doing Double The Music, so Clifton announced Triple The Music. It freaking showed up in research years after the station was LMA’ed and became whatever it was next.
There’s binge drinking. Binge TV watching. Why not binge listening?
Gas Blast
2/3’s of the best contest methodologies in Radio came out of Power 96 in Miami. And the ONE contest that most destroyed the phone system was Cash Blast. It was presented as the world’s easiest contest: “We’re opening up the phones for 20 minutes, and if you get through and we answer, you win $96.” After every song in that 20-minute period, the announcer would read off some more names that he’d taken. It sounded…huge.
KAJA in San Antonio had 900 tickets to a George Strait stadium show and announced the times for ticket blast on social media.
And next week, a station will be doing it with $50 gas cards.
As a methodology, “blast” is great and could be done with anything. You can overthink prizes. Any kind of summer ticket or even food items would work. It’s all in the presentation and the imaging of taking a hundred winners. Ask me and I’ll walk you through it.
“The Somehow I Missed It Film Festival”
Test “Big movies that everyone saw except you?” on social media and see what happens. Me? “The Exorcist.” Not sure how I missed that.
One of the morning shows has this on its list. The cohost never saw Grease, so she’s going to find ten listeners who also missed it and have them over to the station to watch it in the conference room with pizza and popcorn.
Momtage
The Hallmark Holidays have given a world ‘o themes for contesting. One of the stations has a grocery store gift card. Excellent. Great prize. One thought that’s on the table is to take six or seven “moms” from TV and films, montage them, ID them all (ie, “Mrs. Arnold” from The Wonder Years), and you get the groceries.
