CPR Promotional Check-Up - Sep 15, 2011

Commercial Free Hours/Days/Weeks

Back when I started this job, most of the Clifton stations were doing dial position minutes of commercial free music under the moniker of Triple The Music. Contesting was usually tied in to support it and had listeners counting the songs and getting paid by artist/title.

NOW in NYC took it to the next level with Commercial Free Mondays. I have some of their imaging for it; great stuff that I will send if you ask.

Quite a few stations have adopted CFM and it works. But...there's always a little pushback from clients who see it as labeling spots as bad or a stigma.

With 90 minute music sweeps at Z90 in San Diego, they used the return to music out of the spots, as the cue to call. So...you had the players sitting and listening intently to the spots. The clients loved it. Go figure.

One of my favorite April Fools bits is to have people ID errors on the website or on-air. Kind of like the Drew Carey Error Episode. Steve Jones with Newcap said that THAT could be a client appeaser. Run a fake spot every day and be the first to ID it and text in "Bob's Used Auto Glass!" and win. Again, it gets the players to sit through spots.

Steve BTW has a book called "Brand Like A Rockstar" that is already charting high on Amazon with just pre-sale orders. Get it. You will be wiser for it. He takes the lessons of bands like KISS' success and applies them to marketing. http://brandlikearockstar.com/

Cut The Cord With Kate

Not in an episiotomy kind of way. Last August Mike and Kate at Mix 106 in Boise did some stuff around kids heading off to school (1st grade and college) and helping the grieving moms work through it. Kate headed out for a limo night out with some of these mothers. Dinner, drinks, dancing, breakfast at 2 am. Great bit that you could still realistically do.

Holiday Malls

Everything that comes through Promotions in the next couple months? Grab a few off the top and stash them for a campaign in November. Your goal should be to be the background music on the store speakers in as many retailers as possible. The week before Thanksgiving week go out with swag (movie tickets are best) and go to every store in every mall. Greet the manager. Bribe him/her to put your station on, and promise to return at least twice between Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you catch them playing the station, everyone who's working gets hooked up again. This is about to hit somewhere as "turn us on".