CPR Promotional Check-Up - Nov 18, 2011

TSO

Had one of those “drifting thoughts in church” thoughts on Sunday. The Trans Siberian Orchestra song is great, dramatic...and without lyrics. A morning show co-host with mad vocal skillz is going to do at least a couple of versions of it, inserting lyrics from “Hippopotamus For Christmas”, “Santa Baby” and maybe even “Dear Mr. Jesus”. Kind of like Scary Poppins on youtube; just some subtle shifts in tone and pacing and it’ll take on a new meaning.

“Christmas Time Is Here”

Bringing the Paigettes back from church and listening to KOOL 108 and their Christmas programming, they played "Christmas Time Is Here" from the "Charlie Brown Christmas". I started just riffing along:

Christmas time is near,
Time to win is here,
The DJ has some stuff for free
It would go great with your tree

Call KOOL 1...08
Call now don't be late
The prizepigs in their trailer homes
Are reaching fast for their phones... 

"Charlie Brown" is one of the most ridiculously branded TV shows ever. It's been parodied over and over. That particular song ended up on "Arrested Development" http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=iNRUjnp-5Rw

What if you did some imaging and promos using that song bed in December? You need:

* This http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4MTaFC70Bw&feature=related
* A kids choir to sing whatever you write.

You don't even really have to be an All Christmas format. I can help writing if you'd like.

Holidazing The Website

You really want to have the website tweaked so that at midnight on Thanksgiving, whoever is in charge of pushing the button, clicks and you go to your Christmas-ized homepage. If your audience is bathed in the bacchanalia of the season and your website is absolutely no different then it was in mid-April, that’s pretty sad. On the other hand, when the Rockies were in the midst of the Series in ’07, the words “Rockies”, “baseball”, and “World Series” were absent from the Mix 100/Denver website. So there ya go....

Hermy, Ralphie & The Grinch Barry Adams was the web-mind behind Wired in Philly from their inception until recently. That station’s website epitomized what a great site should look like in December. Ralphie from “A Christmas Story” and the Abominable Snowman from “Rudolph” were lurking in the upper quadrants of the homepage and a backwards ticking clock counted down the seconds to Christmas Day. It was Art.

Santa’s Workshop That was the default start page for KZIA in Cedar Rapids last year. It. Was. Cool.

Christmas Lights Another cool visual would be to completely encircle, as a border, the homepage with lights and garland.

NORAD Growing up, I was glued to WTCN on Christmas Eve as they did the whole “tracking Santa on radar” thing. To have a radar image next month, with a stationary “fix on the target” at the North Pole would be cool. And, obviously, on Christmas Eve it goes and you have a image bopping around the globe and closing in on your market.

Yule Log Christmas Day? What if you blew up the page and the “live image” was a roaring log in a fireplace? Why? Why not? Stop overthinking things.

Snow So obvious, and so simple. A bunch(c) of the stations did this last year and had, throughout the month, gently cascading snow on the website.

Jock Bios As cool as the Glamour Shots are, get pics of your DJ’s from when they were kids and sitting on Santa’s lap and replace their photos. Why? Do we have to revisit this?

X-Match Have a slew of Christmas special images (Chipmunks, Charlie, Frosty, Scutt Farkus) and have a game where people connect them to the appropriate show to win a tree or some lights or a big ‘ole ham.

Scroogetube There’s some amazing stuff out there. You should troll and snag as many worthy vids as you can. Like this gem from Twin Cities Public Access circa 1993. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BTLfW8HQOg

Merryoke A couple of the stations have done Karaoke off their websites. Music beds and scrolling lyrics. Great way to market to all of the offices that will be having little informal holiday gatherings and need an activity.

The Colors Of The Season I think it was Magic in Colorado Springs that just changed the color scheme of the website to red and green last year. It looked great. Yes; it IS rocket science.

The Cursor One of the Wolf stations has a paw print for their cursor. Latino in LA, when they were doing Beat The Bomb, had a little bomb with a sparking fuse. What about a little reindeer? Or a snowman? Or Santa?