Jerry Clifton once said, “The only reason to do contests is to make promos.” Since 4% of our listeners play our contests, the real value is entertaining the 96%, and maybe nudging a few into trying their hand at it.
Due to staffing, one of the Operating Managers has to make all their prizes digital entries. He’d like to do something that would drive people to enter and not just be another message lost in the clutter.
The idea he’s working on is a series of promos from a cheerful AI “voice” designed to “help you win lots of prizes, easily and efficiently!”
Adding a character to imaging is never going to be a bad thing, as evidenced by 99.7 DJX and the Cat Lady who drove their group contest to the highest engagement levels for that promotion in Alpha.
If you need some character, let me know. This is the Fun Stuff, and I’d love to help. Send me an email at [email protected].
And now… on with the Dumpage:
She Got The Interview!
When I worked in SFO, Mancow was the morning guy and had “a guy” at the phone company who could get anyone’s phone number. You wanted the number to Johnny’s Carson’s phone at his tennis court? 30 minutes.
We were screening a Brian De Palma movie, and he lived in the north bay and ‘cow was a film freak and asked me to go through the agency to set up an interview. We were repeatedly turned down. So he made a call, got the number, and called the director at home. One of the greatest morning show interviews ever; two film nuts just riffing about cinema.
Jackie Donovan at Q-101.7 in Glens Falls desperately wanted to interview Def Leppard and had tried every label and Radio contact that she knew. No luck.
So she started stalking pubs in Sheffield, England, where the band is from. She got a supposed address for one of the guys, mapped out every bar within walking distance (5 or 6 blocks) and finally got a hit on a guy who knew someone who worked with them.
Bang. She got the interview.
A Lifestyle Vehicle
You know you have a great promotion or campaign or event when it would be hard to explain how huge it is to someone in another market. “Trading Duck Blinds” in Fargo. Huge. Inexplicable to a person in Memphis or Dallas or Cincy. Same with Beale Street in Memphis or the Fish Fry stuff that Hubbard in Cincy does.
We created a show called Saturday in the Shed. The premise is that a guy was broadcasting from a shed, actively taking calls, airing requests, contests, etc. Then we actually built a shed. That was a few years ago, and the show became a Saturday tradition for listeners, and the shed was the most recognizable station… eh, ‘vehicle’? in the market. Everything wears out, except a cool idea, so we made a new one.
Halloween Match Game
Match Game has always been a great methodology. You call, you pick two numbers on a grid, and the DJ tells you what’s behind them. Match them and win whatever they are. Done by KRST in ABQ as Kristmas Koncentration.
Their sister station did it with stockings. One station did it with booze during the holidays. NOW in SFO did it as Mask Game in 2020.
So why not do it with either pumpkins or ghosts for Halloween? Sell clients into the board, stick a few cash prizes and tickets and passes to Halloween attractions in the market.
Playing To The Hoarders
I was once at a station that was doing a Scavenger Hunt and as a nod to the 99% of the audience that wasn’t going to be going through the stacks at the library looking for a yearbook with Prince in it, we added a daily bonus item. Something for everyone. “Today we’re looking for a napkin from Zantigos (which had gone out of business ten years before). Bring yours to the station before 5 pm to be in the running for $500.”
People have…stuff. Kind of like what Kennedy from Mix in Boston has done with “Let’s Make A Glove Compartment Deal” at remotes. She’ll name an item like “A comb with an advertising message on it,” and people will rush to their cars to dig for one.
Same deal. Just toss out something like “A keychain that has a sports franchise on it” and have people dig, shoot, and post. Again, we all have stuff; some more than others.
Show & Tell
Jeff Davis at Cumulus in Fayetteville was thinking about doing Show Us Yours And We’ll Show You Ours as a daily photo contest. Shower? Frig? Workplace nookie spot? Sore?
You could also do it as Show And Tell Tuesday. Have people who have something weird or famous submit a pic; every week you’ll post one and the listener can tell you how they came to have a toilet seat from Jesse McCartney’s dressing room or a parking ticket from Moscow or a bullet from Pearl Harbor. Why not? Listeners have great stories. I drove a cab for a summer. And oh my. The stories.
When my parents moved into my childhood home, there was an old headstone from the 1800’s in our garage, behind stuff. How it got there, we have no idea, and it was still there when we moved 18 years later. That would be a story.
Just Add Water
We forget car washes as great quick hit fundraisers. I saw Phoenix that threw a car wash yesterday to raise funds for a permanent memorial for the four TV news people and chopper pilots who were killed in the mid-air collision two weeks ago. Some of the money also went to a fund for families of murdered cops: a police officer was also shot to death that day. 1500 cars, 5000 people, $40,000. That’s a “10” no matter who is scoring. Oh, and coverage on all TV.
Food & A Flick
This was 95.7 Jamz Fall Book promotion a couple of years ago. It’s simple and for the average schmo out there: a helluva prize. The station did hundreds of giveaways of dinner for two at Tony Romas and two movie tickets. That’s a date. That’s a night out. That’s a great prize.
Speaking Of Flicks
One of the things that we get totally desensitized to is movie screenings. At one point when I was in Charlotte, we were doing three or four screenings a month. The jocks got burned out on them. They became as exciting as giving away CD’s. zzzz…
What can you do to make your screenings or ticket giveaways, if not special, at least better than the other stations in town? Because, in a weak economy, movie tickets are GOLD.
- 99% of your listeners will never ride in a limo. Add a limo to the theater as a grand prize.
- Have as many of your jocks there as possible. Have them standing at the tops of the aisles, greeting the listeners. What a great opportunity to press-the-flesh. Most stations don’t even HAVE a jock go. What a waste.
- One of the Newcap stations in Canada created a slideshow of station images to play on the screen before the movie started. As opposed to that awful movie trivia thing that usually runs.
- Find an alternative place to show the movie. In a park. At a wave pool. At a block party. At a drive-in. On the ceiling at the IMAX.
- Send tickets to high school papers. Ray Wong at Wild in San Francisco does that, and the station gets massive love in the papers when they review the movie.
- Is there a theme you can play off of with the movie? I did a screening once for some awful stupid-crooks film. I had cops come in and arrest the DJ who was introducing the movie in the midst of her spiel.
- Award whole workplaces tickets to the screening. Tickets for everyone from a winning office. PPM LOVES at-work listening. (Just shoot me now for saying that; as if we didn’t want people sitting and listening for nine hours at a time in Diary)
- Movies are a visual. Websites are a visual. Glasses are a vi…nevermind. If you’re doing “Hawaii 5-0” then maybe you have a visual of the morning guy asleep under a palm tree. When the coconut drops and bops his head, that’s the cue to open the phones. You can take just “regular tickets” and dress them up with a web contest.
- One winner of tickets should be the reviewer the next morning.
- Movie Lines are a hobby for a lot of people. I’d do a Quote Off. The College Of Celluloid Knowledge. Ten people in the studio. Whittle ‘em down. One gets tickets to every movie you’re doing for the rest of the year.
- Can you do after-parties at clubs? Keep the party going, so to speak? With enough advance time, the agency can usually get the client/club/restaurant on the ticket.
- If the movie is scary, give out adult diapers. If it’s romantic, let some listeners watch it from a bed in the front row.
Have fun with them. People love movies. These are great prizes.
The Secret School Sound
In the beginning, there was the Secret Sound. And it was good.
In fact, 99.7 NOW-FM in San Francisco has been doing it for a couple of years, and they have been pulling really strong numbers with it. But also, Ryan, the person coming up with the sounds, has been doing a really good job with it. (Though “a gerbil in one of those bank drive-thru tube thingies” was kind of ill-advised.)
They’ve also done The Secret Sounds Of Summer and done sounds specific to that time of year in that specific market.
Up next? Back To School.
Trolling around station sites, there are a lot of images of backpacks. Hmmm…
The best version of Secret Sound is The Black Box: you “stick some items” in a box and hang it from a crane next to a freeway. ID all 6 or 7 sounds and win a cash prize.
You could do it with a backpack. ID the “commonly associated with school” item or action that is in the backpack and win a backpack full of Back To School swag. Like the sound of a crayon in one of those crayon sharpeners on the side of the box. Or the sound of dialing a combination on a locker.
Battle Of The Burbs
Every market has community rivalries. Edina vs. Richfield. Charlotte vs. Gastonia. In Calgary, it’s North Calgary vs. South Calgary. So JACK-FM pits a listener from each of those against each other in a trivia competition on the morning show.
Free Skating
You can overthink prizes. Giving a listener passes to take their kids skating or to go skating with friends in the summer is going to be large. Energy-FM in Bakersfield does skate passes on days when it cracks 100, which is kinda brilliant.
The Prize Vault
A “prize closet” sounds small and mundane. Energy-FM in Myrtle Beach has a vault. Okay, that sounds big. And they’re doing a contest series where they’re emptying it and getting ready for all the great prizes arriving in the fall.
This was done in December by KSFM ala, “Everything must go, we’re clearing out all the 2026’s to make room for a huge inventory of 2027’s that arrive on January 1st!”
