CPR Promotional Check-Up - Jun 20, 2011

HOT

I don't think any of you are in the middle of a heatwave RIGHT NOW, but it will happen. Soon. "Beat The Heat" is a cool summer vibe. The Box in Houston used this as their umbrella for the summer. Everything they did was geared at helping people survive a HOT Texas summer. One of the other stations is going to use Red, White & Wet for their "umbrella" and kick the summer off with jetski giveaways, and follow those up with waterpark tickets, swimsuits, gas (which is of course wet), ice cream, sodas, suntan lotion and about 1000 other things that can tie in to this theme.

Heat is a promotional op. Make the most of it.

And Yet Even More On Lower Back Logos

What about having all the young women on your street team get the tanned on logos for the summer .

Time & Temp

The late/great/bald Jay Stone did something in Vegas that made me literally fall down laughing. He took the "time temp lady" and changed it to say "at the tone, the time is 12 noon, and the temperature is 10,000 degrees." He did these for all of the top-of-the-hours. I'm attaching something from KOOL 105. They made it a little too Radio-y. But they got the gist of it.

Drive By Scooping

Happened in Denver when the morning guy went crazy from the heat(tm), stole an ice cream truck and went on a rampage that had him handing out 3000 free samples of frozen relief to people in the community.

Heat & Greet

Mix 93 in Kansas City collected air conditioners and fans for senior citizens. In exchange, they hooked up the listeners who dropped these off with meet and greet passes for Avril Lavigne.

Car Washes

With heat comes dust and with dust comes dirty cars. Do the math. Why not get ten or twelve local highschool cheerleading squads and do a big ass car wash for charity this coming weekend. Hook the girls up with movie passes or hot tub sessions with the consultant.

Freeze Your Ass For (Insert Prize)

Any time you can freeze prizes in blocks of ice and have listeners try to win them by melting them using only their butt temps, well, that's the reason I quit med school for a career in Radio. GREAT visual for TV.

The Incredible Bikini Jam

If your station targets women, then you need to know that free swimsuits are right up there with shoes and purses in terms of being great prizes. Rick Thomas during his first regime at Z-90 in San Diego, just for no reason other then he thought it might be big, did a weekend of free bikinis. Phones melted. He was stunned at the response.

Free Swim Fridays

V-103 in Baltimore once, when the temps topped their dial position, went and paid for all of the public swimming pools in that market for the day. Come and swim for free. Granted it was only a couple of bucks a person but the size of it on the air sounded huge.

Your Logo In Grass

Is there a hillside that overlooks a major interstate in your market where the grass has begun to go brown from the heat? Get the intern staff, and using buckets, water your call letters on the hillside. It'll grow in green. Nothing illegal about watering grass. They can't stop ya.

Movie Theaters

What could possibly be better on a hot humid day then to sit in a dark, airconditioned theater for a couple of hours? Movie tickets are always great prizes. No more so then when it's 1000 degrees outside.

Play With Our Hose

What's your relationship like with the fire department? Can you get one of their pumper trucks to come out and spray down the masses in a park as you host some kind of games or contest? Or at least open up a hydrant.

Getting Out Of The Studio

Doing the fake nude beach broadcast that Philly just did would be very vibing. Call me and I can walk you through it. The station in Salt Lake City did a bit where the AC broke down and they relocated the studio to a listeners' pool for a day. At the very least, you want tons and tons and tons of calls from the beaches and lakes and pools.

Innertubing

In some markets there are nearby rivers where people go and rent tubes and drink beer and float down the river. If there's one near you, that's where you have to be.

An Inflatable Weekend

Go to Toys R Us and get slip 'n slides and supersoakers and every inflatable pool toy you can find. Great prizes in warm weather.

Waterparks

An obvious no-brainer. Your listeners are not going to be buying cars or shopping for wallpaper or visiting clients...unless that client is a waterpark. You need to find a reason to be there. If they won't pay for you to come, then go for free. This is "lifestyle" and topical at the same time. Would you rather be at a drug store doing a remote or at a waterpark with 10,000 people?

Things You Throw

What if you got 100 listeners, gave them each a bucket of waterballoons and hosted a big ass waterballoon fight?

Christmas In July

Mancow did this in San Francisco during a heatwave. Got a freezer truck (like the kind companies like Tyson will use to ship their product cross-country) and had it filled with snow up at Tahoe. Drove it down to Oakland and dumped in a park for kids who had NEVER seen snow to frolic in. Can you get ice shavings or one of those snowmaking machines to do this?

Skating Parties

For families, admission and skate rental at an ice rink would be a fun way for them to beat the heat.

Kool Aid

For no reason other then you can, go out and do a Kool Aid stand with all of the money going to some kids charity.

Wet Dreams

This was a weekend contest from Wired in Philly from last Summer. Nothing but pool toys and waterpark tickets.

Pay Off Your Power

With heavy AC use comes high electric bills. KDWB did a bit a couple of winters ago when they paid off people's heating bills. Fax it in, listen for your name and the station would pay it off. Why not do this with electric bills next month?

Outdoor Movies

The city of Minneapolis used to do this where they'd get some kind of big screen, set it up in Loring Park and on summer evenings they show free movies. You pull something like that off? It'd be large.

Fountains

KSFM's booth at the California State Fair used to be right across from a fountain and on hot days (it never seemed to be below 100) people would just sit in the fountain and listen to the music from the station. There's a bit here.