CPR Promotional Check-Up - Apr 25, 2012

Prom-otions

If "18" is part of the demo number that you are targeting, than to miss prom night would be an egregious (Masters Program word) thing indeed.

Most prom nights will occur on one of three nights. Someone, perhaps an eager intern, should be compiling a list so that you can go out and try to target these. This is one of the biggest nights of their lives. To have a night guy from a radio station bop in, grab the crowd mike, lob out some shirts, snap some shots and do a break, would then make the radio station a permanent part of that memory. I would take that any day.

If for any number of reasons you can't be out at the schools for this seminal (Med School word) night, then there are other things you can do to acknowledge it. "Acknowledge" is key. Just throw them a bone that provides evidence you operate in the same universe as they do.

Prom Photos Change your jock bio Glamour shots to your prom photos. Like Julie from Mix in Dothan.

Win A Date With A DJ To Prom There are a 1000 different ways that this can come off as egotistical, smary, dbaggy, and just plain creepy. You have to have a hook. To present it like your airtalent is some kind of catch is boring and worse, really no one cares.

Limos If you have a limo to giveaway, it is to teens what Bill Paying and gas is to their parents. KGGI in Riverside did Loco For Limos and gave away about ten. It shut down phone service. Literally.

Pimp Dad's Car FRED-FM gave away a convertible Corvette for a highschool student to use for the night. Thus enabling them to say "FRED-FM's Topless Prom".

I took Gretchen Allen to prom in my dad's Ford Matador. (Think "the rental car from 'Planes, Trains And Automobiles") Which explains a lot of why that evening was a horrible disappointment in all departments. What if you teamed up with a detailer, a car electronics client, maybe an auto upholsterer and help trick out some kids' dads' car? So he can arrive, if not in style, with a minimum of embarrassment.

POV (Prom Of View) Limo busses are big for groups. What if you pimped out your night guy as the driver and he recorded the evening for the website, using something like this? http://www.avalonrf.com/Products/lapelcameras/shortrange.html

Prombook They'll be sitting and clicking and posting shots all night. What better gallery than a station website or FB page for everyone in town to be posting and sharing.

Prom Wars What about dusting off High School Survivor and do it as Prom Wars. Schools vote each other off. Last school wins a dance. Now, the challenge is that most of your schools have locked down their entertainment already. So there needs to be another hook or incentive for them to care.

Getting an artist or celeb to pop in would be cool…but difficult since proms fall on different dates. Having the DJ's host would be decent. Giveaways and food would be all right. Getting your prom webcast on the station website might be cool. If you put some of this stuff together, you could have a package.

And if you think "Olympics", you could sell some "officials".
The Official Limousine Service
The Official Formal Wear Store
The Official Florist
The Official Hair Salon
The Official Morning-After Pill
The Official Breakfast-At-6 am-Joint

Gowntown KDWB, Kiss in Charlotte, KLUC, KZIA in Cedar Rapids have all collected prom dresses. Some of these campaigns take months to put together. DVD in Detroit did one on three weeks notice and collected 1300 last year.

Would Be HUGE On A Lite Rock Station Parents are equally culpable in the limo phenom. They think that by renting their kids a stretch, they will be insuring a safe evening. Lotta new grandparents out there because of that mindset. (But it is definitely preferable to drinking, driving and getting a special memorial page in the yearbook.) Anyway, I've lobbed this out before. Go to http://www.getcheckmate.com/ , buy their deposit detecting product, and go down to a limo company on a Monday and test some backseats.

These People Have JOBS! Stupidest Comment Of 2009: "I don't want to get pigeon-holed as just a teen jock". Said by a night jock on a CHR station. Idiot.

Stupidest Email Stream Of 2010:
Me: Half the schools in your market have proms next Saturday.
Him: I'm on the air on Friday and then go to a club
Me: But on Saturday night?
Him: It's my night off.
Me: You have a club on Sunday?
No reply from him. Idiot.

Local Angles Every year I remind people to keep their eyes open for local prom stories to seize on. The girl who made her dress from the Yellow Pages. The girl who is going with her father who just returned from Afghanistan. Fly in Albany jumped on something in '08 and threw a prom in a girls backyard after she was told her boyfriend, thrice decorated in Iraq and 22, could not go with her. HUGE.

So….last year Alabama had some storms. You may have read something about it. One of the Birmingham highschools has loads of displaced (read: homeless) students with no tuxes, no dresses, no corsages.

B Money found a client to pay for tuxes. He got Winn Dixie to trade out corsages and he's paying for the balance. He got TI's company to commit to send the New Boys for the dance on Friday and has also got a bowling alley to host a post party. TI's company is also paying for all the kid's dinners. Food and other accoutrement in the works.

I guess this is cool. Personally I'm disappointed that it's taking the emphasis off growing numbers in the VIP Club…but I guess they'll just have to wait another week.

Promtourage One of the stations reached out yesterday and they have a makeover (crappy name), and the night show will escort the re-done wallflower to her prom in a limo. I Googled: as a name, this got 747 hits. In today's world, that's original.

iProms To paraphrase R Kelly, "After the dance, it's the after party." In theory, on Sunday mornings at 3 am in May, there should be thousands of 17 and 18 year-olds listening to the station in houses and limos and hotels. The iProm bit is simple; you solicit playlists, scan through them (like stations do with myPod) and find ones that are basically what you would be playing anyway. A couple of cool songs that might not be necessarily in the format can only drive in the point that this is legit and also help your hipness factor.

So every hour from midnight to 6 am on Sundays in May, you are listener driven and focused on the kids who are partying after their proms. And you obviously let them know a week in advance so they can tell all their friends to be listening..

It's similar to what Live 105 did with "Free For All" at night in San Francisco…and the numbers doubled.

Extreme Teen Facials As done by KOB-FM in Albuquerque where they awarded hair, makeup, and all-around reconstruction from a spa/salon.

Menage A Prom DJ tags along and shares prom night and pays for all their expenses for the privilege of finally getting to go to prom.