Last week I presented a session called The 25 Greatest Radio Promotions Of All Time at the final Conclave learning conference. Shoot me an email, and I’ll reply with the list. Most of these are actionable in 2026. One was WPGC’s Stop The Violence campaign.
The station was #1 for decades, and it was all built around their service to the community. STV was their umbrella for everything they did, from midnight basketball to DARE events.
It originated from a brainstorming session that Dave Ferguson hosted at the station in 1989. He asked the staff, “What is the #1 issue with our listeners?” They all looked at each other and replied, “Violence.” At most stations, this is where it would have ended, but ‘PGC dove into it and built their station on their community involvement.
55 stations did variations on Stop The Violence.
(insert billboard image)
Bill Tanner once said, “All the ratings gimmickery will never beat a radio station that has an emotional connection with the audience.” (“Ratings gimmickery” is asking people to listen at 2:08)
So, allegedly we have this license thing. What is the #1 issue with your audience?
And now on with the Dumpage.
For Your Halloween Clients
One of the stations has a theme park with an annual spooktacular© month of events and a lot of tickets to giveaway. You COULD do “Monster Mash” and get six or seven movie monsters in a clip and post on your FB. ID even one and get tickets.
Working Dead
Zombies? Are to 2016 what breakdancers were to 1983. Power in Miami is one of the stations that has put zombie street teamers out in the community. Ditto with one of the Canuck stations
So, one of my clients is going to do “The Working Dead”. Submit a photo of you in full zombie regalia at your job and do an on-line gallery for voting. With Halloween, this could be done either on-line or also as the promotion on the 31st where you go and hit offices with candy and punch because people WILL go to work in costume that day.
“Dang gurl, you be smellin’ FINE”
Sometimes you meet people, and you think, “I bet they had a very interesting childhood.” Elizabethany would be one of those. Pumpkin Spice IS your comic foil for the next six weeks.
Hang Time Part 1
One of the stations is looking for an alternative name for “meet and greets”. One would be “hang time”. As in, “You’re going to get some hang time with La Bouche”.
Hang Time Part 2
For the average schmo™, tickets to an NFL game are a GREAT prize. So wouldn’t you want to have fun with them? And it’s football, so there are some creative and visual things you can do. Like what KSON did for Valentine’s.
Or, as a station west of the Mississippi, north of Mexico and south of Alaska, where they’re going to take twenty callers and assign them each a number. The co-host is going to go out and have a high school player punt balls to her. If she catches the 8th ball, then caller #8 will get it. Or, as expected, they’ll need to recycle through the line a couple of times before she finally hauls one in.
Do Not Disturb Thursday
Here is a great theme from Jay Michaels and the station formerly known as 102.9 NOW-FM in Dallas.
(“Waving Bic Lighters” Are Assumed)
For US stations, you literally can’t go with free turkeys for contesting in mid/late November than free turkeys. Joe Russo shares the best and simplest name for a giveaway: “Free Bird!”
A Mile Of Monsters
BEN-FM in Philly has done The Mile Of Men for Valentine’s. Men line up along the road with little numbered signs for women to drive by, scope, and vote.
Carlos Duran with 93.3 The Q in Albuquerque says that this could just as easily be a costume contest with parents and their little kids, lined up for text-in voting. Definitely not an AM Drive thing, and you don’t want to try it on the 31st, so it could be an event on Saturday the 30th. Perhaps ending with food and games at a client’s location.
The Jingle Bell Rock
One of the categories that got missed with the 25 Greatest Radio Promotions Of All Time was “treasure hunts.” Hiding something and having people find it has historically been a great methodology for Radio.
The River in Nashville had the best Taylor Eras contest with hiding images of a watch all over town. Find, snap, and get an entry in a drawing for tickets.
The Excel Energy Center in St. Paul hides eggs on their website for Easter.
Coming up quickly is Christmas.
KKLZ/Las Vegas’ Jingle Bell Rock is seismic in that market. A brightly painted rock is hidden, clues are given, and the person who finds it wins a bunch of cash for Christmas. (Cash is King, but so are trips and tix)
The placement of the rock is an almost CSI endeavor with bait cars and parking garage transfers to avoid the audience. And yes, the listeners have tried drones.
If you have a decent prize, hit me up and we’ll cobble this together.
Trick Or Trivia
I’ve referenced the casino I do work with. They have trivia on Thursday nights and one Thursday a month is a theme night. October it will be Scary Movies with seasonal elements woven into it.
If you have a bar, then there ya go.
Master-Tato Theater
Lick It For Tickets has always been a fun social media contest. Throw out a theme or an item (traffic sign or co-worker or tool) and have the audience lick and post. Hilarity will ensue™.
A station in Australia recreated Taylor Swift photos with potatoes.
What about having people add taters to the list of vegetables that they’ll decorate for Halloween? Draw a Chucky or a Cujo or other character from horror films and win tickets to whatever haunted attraction that you’re working with.
Free Willy
Got a reply from a station that has this on the calendar. If you have NOT held a turkey hostage under threat of execution, then:
- You have not lived
- It’s not as easy as it sounds
This is usually the muther of all food drives, and you can make money off it. But it’s work. It’s not sticking barrels at the Lucky store and running some lame PSAs. I can walk you through it if you have questions. [email protected]
The Idiots Guide To Pumpkin Drops
Q-104 in Halifax has a pretty great track record of dropping huge hollowed-out pumpkins full of numbered balls to award prizes.
I saw a shopping mall in Milwaukee do this with a huge NON-hollow pumpkin and the contest was to guess how far the farthest piece would fly to win $1000 shopping at the mall.
From Trevor Walworth with Q:
Ping pong balls work the best for us. Each grand prize qualifier registers with us the morning of the pumpkin drop and is issued a numbered ping pong ball. All balls are placed in the pumpkin, and a target is painted on the ground. Closest to the target wins. Some balls get crushed; some travel a hundred feet, but we have had no problems getting a winner. We considered golf balls, but the drop on pavement and potential bounce/injury were a concern. This year we have six grand prizes to award. Five trips south and a car. Since the actual contesting for the trips is different than the car contesting, we have two sets of qualifiers. 104 trip qualifiers get white balls, and the 20 or so car qualifiers will be given orange balls. One main target for the car and five satellite targets for the trips. We also do a little pre-giant pumpkin drop show with a second drop bucket full of 20lbers and carpet the drop site with them. Sort of like a fireworks show with the giant pumpkin as the big finale.
Sell. This
Flat Stanley is/was. Kind of like Flat Fritsch, where listeners of Q-102 could take Fritsch from the morning show on Summer vacations and post pics of her adventures around the world.
The Thanksgiving version would be “Eat With”. Download/print a PDF of a morning host headshot off the site, set him/her up in a chair at Thanksgiving dinner, and post and share with the hopes of scoring™ a fully prepared Christmas meal from a valued client.
One Scream Cinema
Halloweenth haveth arriveth, at least in terms of client requests. 104.1 in Hartford has done One Second Cinema. One second of a famous movie. ID it and win. If you have tickets to Halloween attractions, well, there ya go.
Or you could do it as iScream and have it sponsored by some place like DQ.
Rage Rooms
First, thank you to 97.1 ZHT in Salt Lake City for introducing me to the term “Rage Room”. I had no idea these places existed, and they probably would have saved me from getting banned from a lot of casinos and restaurants and Christian Science reading rooms. Basically, you go in and can scream and break stuff.
Like any other business, they could probably use some PR, so giving away a session after Thanksgiving (the most dramatic family Hallmark Holiday) or Tax Day or Valentine’s could be fun. Also on Mondays after football games.
You could also do Rage Van and just pull up, let them climb in the back. Take a walk around the block and let them out after they’ve gotten it out of their system.
