In early January, I met with Jeff Berry, the Market Manager for Cumulus in Albuquerque.
Ahead of the US’s 250th birthday, Jeff quickly launched a campaign on the streets, awarding flags to vets, volunteers, and community leaders. The campaign, 250 Flags supported by 96.3 KKOB, is ridiculously cool. They’ve monetized it to the tune of some developing nations’ GDP, which is a bonus.
This week, the Dumpage is all about our traditional three-day start to the summer.
Victoria Day, the Canadian start to summer honoring Queen Victoria, falls on May 18. That’s a full week before Memorial Day on May 25, the US’s unofficial start to summer. Both weekends are great for promotions, as many will be off work and outside enjoying the weather.
Vehicular Management I hear a lot of “we can’t be at (event)(activity) because we have a remote.” I would then ask: How many vehicles do they have? If they say two or more, that answers the question. It’s basic: you can be at remotes and actually at places where people are. For the first two years they were on the air, Wild in San Francisco had only one van. But we planned out every day in 30-minute increments, so we made the most of it. Get a three-day calendar and break it down, hour-by-hour, vehicle-by-vehicle for every weekend.
Stalking The Audience Part of promotions is knowing where your listeners are, and being there. What WIOG in Saginaw did is pretty much common sense – where do their listeners go? North, to go camping. So, where did WIOG take their three-day weekend broadcast? North, to the campgrounds. It’s a resourceful vibe, working with what you have and making the most of it.
Goin’ Live To The Streets Wherever you go, it’s a waste if you don’t talk about it on the air. Part of Street School is teaching the kids how to do call-ins. Both Power 96 in Miami and NOW in San Francisco have mastered the art of piggy-backing the call-ins. For instance, “Let’s check in with Paige, he’s out with the street team at Lake Calhoun.” I say something brilliant and then send it to Sonia, who’s with the Pepsi Street Unit at Grand Old Days. She mumbles something intelligent, sends it to Dan down at Hoop It Up on Hennepin Avenue. He does a quick break and sends it back to the jock in the studio. It’s a way to make your station sound like you’re everywhere at once.
The Ministry of Silly Races The Mascara 500 is a take on the Indy 500, and would be great if you’ve already done the Undie 500, or even if you haven’t. Find a large parking lot like at a stadium and set up an obstacle course. Invite your female audience down during the morning show and have them drive the course…while applying their makeup. They lose points for knocking over cones, smearing lipstick on their teeth, etc.
For the uninitiated, the Undie 500 is a tricycle race around a course, and the contestants have to do it in diapers. When we did this in San Francisco, we invited TV sports reporters to participate, and that helped us get some killer coverage. The prize for the winner should be $500, and when you set up the obstacle course, keep in mind that riding a trike ain’t easy: make it a lap or two at most. With either the Mascara or Undie 500’s, you can have some fun and do tongue-in-cheek parodies of the big race in Indianapolis: have an official motor oil, a pace trike, etc.
Things & Places You Crash You need to be where everyone is, and that’s going to be outside. Be sure to hit the parks, the pools, beaches, and playgrounds. If you haven’t got a park/pool patrol going, this would be the weekend to kick it off. 95.7 Jamz in Birmingham crashed pools at apartment complexes and city parks all weekend. KLUC in Vegas did an entire weekend of backyard pool-party crashing. Wild 97.9 in Oklahoma City debuted their Long Ass Limo on Memorial Day Weekend and crashed picnics. Maybe this is the weekend to haul “Invasion Of The Party Crashers” out of mothballs and spring it on the audience?
Because “Blocks” Are Bigger Than “Backyards” Giveaway three Block Parties for the three-day Memorial Day Weekend: one for each day. Tell the listeners that you’ll provide the food, beverages, and music, and they have to provide the family, friends, and neighbors to enjoy the party. Bring out the coolers of cold drinks, rent a big grill, and get some hot dogs, buy or trade some buckets of potato salad, and don’t forget the chips!
Getting “Out” Broadcast outside all weekend. Have the jocks do their shifts from different outdoor locations throughout the holiday weekend: at a public golf course, sitting in a lounge chair next to a pool, lying on an air mattress at a water park. Anywhere, just as long as you’re outside.
Meat Lots of people grill on Memorial Day Weekend. Wild went to San Jose, set up in a park, and did a giant free barbecue for the community. The Wheel of Meat is a great weekend giveaway. Have you done Beat The Bomb? Then you could do Beat The Meat. People would have to “stop the microwave before the hot dog explodes” to win steak, chicken, shrimp, bratwurst, and other grillable prizes. Throw in charcoal, chips, soda, and ice cream for all the winners. Can you get special station barbecue aprons printed in time? The Beat in Austin did a Kanye barbecue flyaway and gave away all sorts of grilling supplies…including aprons that said “Beat The Chef.”
FNL A great summer or warm weather night show feature would be a Friday Night Live type program where the jock would hit the streets and do every break live at spots all over town. Wild/SFO, Jamz in Greensboro, and WPGC have all done this quite successfully under different names. When I was at WPGC, Albie Dee was doing his Friday night show out on the streets and ran into a bachelorette party in a limo. He jumped out of the van and rode with the women for a while. You could kick off your own Friday Night Live program on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, heading into the three-day weekend. KLUC did this on Saturday nights for YEARS. An obviously very successful-for-them promotion.
SPF(Dial Position) The Tuesday morning after everyone gets back, do a Worst Sunburns contest on the morning show. This would be Amy Kaye from Y-94 circa 2017.
Music You can remember other things on Memorial Day, including great music. This might be a great opportunity for an Old School feature or other music countdown or weekend of music. In San Francisco, Wild 94.9 did an All Request Weekend. Starting the week before Memorial Day, they had a phone line that people could call in on and record their requests to get played back during the holiday weekend. The request and the song were both played. It sounded huge.
Boat…On The Water… KSFM in Sacramento used Memorial Day to kick off their season of promoting to people on the water. There are a couple of rivers and lakes, and the Sacramento River delta within the market – all packed with people on boats and on the beaches. KSFM had its own powerboat out on the water all summer. I’ve done boat promotions like this before, and you reach a lot of people that other stations miss because they’re not out there.
For Whom The Bridge Tolls Since everyone’s heading out of town, take a page from the WPGC playbook and pay all their bridge tolls as they flee the city.
Hank Hill Back in the day, Welch and Woody at 102 Jamz in Orlando gave away a barbecue to one of their listeners, went over to their home, and cooked up a storm for the winner and 20 friends. The station provided the grill, charcoal, food, and drinks, and it served as a great morning show promotion. V-103 took it to the next level in Atlanta and did a massive Barbecue Fest geared towards families in a city park, complete with games and activities.
Ice Ice Baby Where does everyone in your market go on Memorial Day Weekend? Wherever they head, you need to be there – just like WIOG did. I did this at Kiss 102 in Charlotte, and the station packed up and went to Myrtle Beach for the best three days I’ll never remember. We were joined by about 100,000 people on vacation. Most from our market. Q-102 in Philly used to go to the Jersey shore and broadcast. They also set up at a highway rest area that was halfway to the beach, and filled coolers with ice. Killer visibility as a quarter million people headed to the ocean.
WWMTVD? Having your own beach house would be very MTV-ish and extremely cool. You’ll always have a place to flee to and broadcast from when the weather gets too scorching. Stressed that there’s not a lot of time left? Don’t be. Find someone from the staff who has a beach home, or knows someone who does, and slip them a couple of bucks to move the on-air staff in for three days. It’s on-air that counts: it’ll sound massive that the station has its own beach house. But this is definitely something you want to start on Memorial Day, not in late July. Incorporate all the stuff that MTV used to do: pool parties, pajama parties, concerts, etc. KLUC in Las Vegas did this, and it was HUGE. They took the DAT to Spring Jam and got drops from artists that they worked into “breaks” from the beach house “out at the lake.” It was the place to be in Las Vegas all weekend…even though it technically didn’t exist.
Sticky If you’re doing a summer sticker campaign, this would be the weekend to blow it up big. Be on the streets looking for hundreds of winners; every time that the jock opens the mike, he/she should have more names of winners to read off. Do a Super Sticker Stop each day of the weekend. Don’t ease into the campaign…kick it off with a bang. Blow the competition out of the water and totally eclipse whatever boring sticker promotion they have.
All Mixed Up 94.3 The Party did 72 hours of live mixing and gave hourly winners a CD of that hour’s mix, including the live mention of them winning. Hot 107 in Memphis did the Memorial Day Mix Weekend, and it was large. People are going to be partying: give them the soundtrack for their weekend. Power 102 in El Paso did The Top 300 Countdown in ’09 and backed up all the music with waterpark and theme park ticket giveaways. Wild in SFO did a Mucho Mixing Weekend in 2015.
Gas Prices at the pump are always a hot-button issue…so why not make them non-existent? Take over a gas station on Friday and do free gas. At these prices, even discounted gas would cause havoc.
Sand In Places It Shouldn’t Be On the Friday before everyone splits town, have people come in in swimsuits and give a prize to the person who can hold the most sand in theirs.
Imaging. I have oodles™. And it’s here.
This week’s Dumpage is all about our traditional three-day start to the summer. Both Canada’s Victoria Day and the US’s Memorial Day weekends are great for promotions, as many will be off work and outside enjoying the weather. Here’s how to make it count.
