When I started this job in 1992, the first Christmas fax (yes, fax) was about 5 pages long. It’s now 26 pages. That is an insane amount of content to dump on anyone; here’s just some of it. There’s enough “stuff” in here that you should be able to find a thing or two to sell. And enough creative methodologies that you won’t need to have people enter their email to win.
If you are up for the rest of the ideas, message me and tell me the name of the radio station in FM.
It’s Christmas. Drape yourself in it.
My basic formula for Christmas is that you have three promotions:
One, overall umbrella promotion that encapsulates everything that you’re doing. Christmas Wish is that way. Stocking Stuffers are that way. The Season Of Giving is that way.
Two, a one-day event or stunt. Maybe a party for offices. Secret Santa. A party for kids, etc.
And three, something for the morning show OR a digital contest like “Elf On A Pet.”
Kind of like a menu from a Chinese restaurant. One from columns A, B, and C. If a client wants a promotion, COOL! Here are three contests, campaigns, or events you can plug them into. Because obviously no one wins if you create a promotion for every client.
So here ya go. Lots to choose from. Some good stuff from ’25 and a whole slew ‘o ideas from recent brainstorming sessions. Also, with the emphasis on digital, just about everything here can bounce back to your site or have a web component or a social networking element.
Take A Toy To Work Day
Got a client with a fleet of vehicles? Do what Magic in Colorado Springs did last year with Take A Turkey To Work Day. Designate one day and then go around and pick them up.
Drive By Noggin’s
Do a series of workplace hits where you bring presents, cookies, punch and eggnog to the ‘nesters.
Unnecessary Christmas Censorship
For no reason other than you can, get clips from some iconic Christmas programming and insert some random bleeps.
DIY Xmas
A video series from the talent on basic things like “how to wrap a present better” (which I desperately need), eggnog recipes, putting together a fake Christmas tree, and how to not get fired after your office party.
Proof That You Can Overthink Prizes
Y-94 in Fargo gave away house cleaning last December. Phones blew up.
12 Plays Of Christmas
Do the Secret Sound a dozen times during the month using noises associated with toys or games.
12 Strays Of Christmas
As done by 101.5 K-Hits in Sacramento. You can never go wrong with pet adoptions.
No LOL
Dez, Ryan and Crisco at KS95 in the Twin Cities do a version of “Make Me Laugh” where the hosts all try not to laugh at jokes. Here’s a name and maybe it’s something you with taking a comic out to workplaces and doing it with a listener.
Christmas Coloring
We rediscovered the joy of coloring contests that could be printed off sites and social media early in COVID. So why not for Christmas?
Station Christmas Cards
Having your own station Christmas cards would be cool. Especially if you opened it up to the kids in the grade schools to design it. For a couple of weeks in November, host a contest with all of the schools, soliciting artwork for the card. The weekend after Thanksgiving, have all the submitted designs on display at a mall and let the shoppers vote for the best. Then quickly run to a printer and bang out a thousand. The kid who draws the best design should win a computer, art lessons and supplies, or maybe $1000. The cards could be sold at your client’s retail locations to raise money for some Christmas charity.
“But Paige, people don’t send out cards anymore.” Yes. They do. And if you choose to, this could be done by having a kid design your Facebook holiday artwork.
Santa Parade
If your market doesn’t have a Christmas parade, why not be a hero and initiate one? This is a fairly enormous undertaking, but you could still pull it off if you start work on it now. What is more warm ‘n fuzzy than a parade with Santa? Involve schools and civic organizations. There are lots of opportunities for clients to get involved with this. How often does a radio station have the chance to start something that could become a market tradition for years to come? KSFM did one with the other CBS stations in that market, and it was huge.
A Race Home For The Holidays
Buy four one-way tickets to, well, the furthest place you can send people without a passport. Send two people from the morning show, each with one listener. Take away their credit cards, ATM cards, and basically any other way they can get money. The first “team” to get home for Christmas wins a trip for that listener’s family. Track the journey on the website.
Awkward Cards
How popular are these things? There’s a website AND a line of greeting cards. One of the Christmas stations is looking at soliciting photos and rewarding the top vote-getter with a visit from the DJ’s who will drop off a tree with lights and ornaments.
For The Site
Just as stations do with Halloween, you should have a web list of EVERY Christmas tree lot, school pageant, Santa parade, and other seasonal event/activity in town. Especially the school stuff. If you ask, trust me, the Choir & Theater Parents will send you the info.
The Next Million Hit YouTube Video
Find a listener. Take the engineer out to their home. And set up one of those “flash to the beat” light displays that ends up on YouTube. Hot in Sudbury just Griswolded a listener’s home for Halloween.
Could Induce Diabetes
I’ve never seen a station work with a mall and mic Santa. Have the parents sign a release form as the kids are up there and edit together a cool collage of little kids asking Santa for stuff.
A Few Of My Favorite Things
Schulte & Swann borrowed heavily from Oprah and her “A Few Of My Favorite Things” holiday bit where she gives away her favorite stuff. Except at KZIA, it’s like socks and air fresheners and perfume samples.
Will Be The “Fluff Piece” On CNN
Regular readers (the indigent and 3rd shift motel employees) will know that I’ve been pushing “surprise soldier homecomings” since 2002. And damn it if it’s not a show now. If you could get a soldier to walk out and surprise his kid at the school pageant DRESSED AS SANTA, then you will, for a day, be the coolest station on the planet. Work the FSO office with the local guard, reserve, and bases. Politicians have juice too.
The other and FAR easier thing to do (and free) is to find some kid whose dad/mom is deployed and webcam their pageant.
Trees
Starting the day after Thanksgiving, you should make it your goal that every on-air winner should get a tree in addition to whatever else they win. If that is too ambitious for your station, then do a week’s worth of trees, and on Saturday, pile all of the trees and your airstaff on a flatbed truck and go around to personally deliver them to the winners. Another idea which is always hot is to qualify all your tree winners for a tree-trimming party. Have all your jocks show up at the person’s house with ornaments, tinsel, lights, eggnog, and cookies and have a party for the winner, their family, and everyone in the neighborhood. I’ve done this one before, and the winner was as excited as any contest winner I’ve ever seen.
Stars Trees
We’ve all done some kind of variation of “Win Timmy T’s Gremlin!” and 99.99% of the time it’s a car we got from a client and said it was the stars’ car, and sometimes, even, we get them to…wait for it…cut the imaging.
Very exciting stuff.
KMLE in Phoenix gave away Brad Paisley’s gas. He’d made a stop at the station and when he got back on the bus…the tank was bone dry. The interns had snuck out and siphoned it all off, and they gave away ten 2 1/2 gallon cans of gas to every winner. (I’d have called them gift cards and put them in the VIP Club)
A station somewhere is going to be presenting it as giving away a local TV anchor’s trees. From her yard. Every night she comes home… It just looks more bare. Huh.
Christmas trees are GREAT prizes, but with everyone doing the same thing, you need to do the opposite to get noticed.
Timber!
Just taking the designated caller and giving them a tree sucks. You need a premise. Like KLAX, where they snuck across the fence to the neighbor’s house every hour and cut down one of her backyard trees. And then snuck back over to the station. She was old and deaf, so the chainsaw didn’t wake her from her nap.
Red Nose, Green Nose
KSD in St. Louis was the first station to do the Red Light/Green Light thing on the website as a weekend promotion. Watch the light, and when it flipped to red, text in for concert tickets. You could EASILY stick Rudolph up in the corner, and when his nose turns red, that’s the cue to call.
The Free Tree Pee
From Bill at Jacobs Media. You get a big lot full of Christmas trees. You walk your dog through the lot, and it has five minutes to mark a tree. If it does, you win it.
(Artists) Greetings
NOW in NYC got perhaps the coolest swag when they had Gaga cut VM messages for some of their listeners last year. You know these will be on their mobile, home, and work lines for, well, ever.
We used to have a starstruck client who LOVED to meet artists. Katrina from the Waves? Didn’t matter. He’d get his photo taken with each and every one of them and ONE (with, inevitably, our logo) would end up on his Christmas card that went out to 1000 people. The Promotion Director at Wild in San Francisco had a different celeb with her for every Christmas card. It was her and George Clooney in ‘95.
You could do this with whoever comes through. And at any time. Get a tree. A faux fireplace. A Santa hat for the artist…and bring some listeners in for their ‘18 holiday card photos. Could be done at the station or as the hook for your backstage meet and greet. And it doesn’t have to be in December. It could be next week. The fact is that they’ll send it to everyone they’ve met since preschool to impress them. Logo on the shot is assumed.
And since most of you will have Balls, Bash’s, Nights and other shows in December, well, yet another hook. Q in Memphis did this with B.O.B., and over 2000 cards were sent out by the winners, promoting the station.
Toyz Noise
The Secret Sound has never sucked so doing whatever you have for prizes by having listeners ID the sounds of various toys would seemingly be sure to be large.
Flat Santa
I was listening to Lee Valvik on KOOL 108 in Minneapolis remind listeners that they could take the station wherever they go during the holidays. What if you did what Q in Cincy did with taking Flat Fritsch with them on their Summer vacation? Create a Santa graphic using the morning guy’s face and have people download and post hashtagged shots at crowded airports, the beach, wherever they find themselves Christmas week.
Driving While Nice
iHeart in Springfield, Mass teamed up with the local popo to pull over people who were driving considerately, and award them with gift bags of client swag.
