CPR Promotional Check-Up - Jul 10, 2012

(Markets) Cheapest Station

When Rick Thomas was at Z-90 for the first time, the morning show did a great bit after the competition signed some insanely huge contract that everyone in town was talking about. They presented themselves as "San Diego's Cheapest Morning Show". Each morning they would throw out an item like "Cheapest Breakfast" and take calls from listeners alerting them to great breakfast deals. The guy who called in with the cheapest, a .99 cent burrito, coffee and OJ at the Exxon in National City, would win and get it bought for him: they'd mail him a buck.

Radio People think like Radio People. Which is why every VIP Club and database and weekend contest and jock bio and at-work promotion all are eerily similar, no matter where you go and listen.

I threw a question out to my Focus Group of about 100 non-Radio friends. I asked if they were members of a Radio station "loyal listener" club. A few were. The majority replied with some variation of "Yes. Please. I really want more spam." I asked what a radio station could text them on a daily basis that they'd care about. Got a nice number of "When tickets for my favorite artist are going to go on sale" and "when my favorite song is about to play."

Which tells me that we're on target with that stuff.

A couple said "If I could log in and say what highways I take to work and if there was a crash, I could get texted and it would say that 35 was closed at Lexington." (Paraphrased)

But a BUNCH all hit on the same theme; things that would help them save money. As witnessed by the Gas Mayhem caused by a thirty cent gas discount last week in one market, people are pinching pennies.

Yes: we have Gas Finder on our websites. But that takes effort. If you could text the group every day with the cheapest price, THAT is something they would care about.

But what if you pulled a Z-90 and took it to the next level? Create the character of this old woman who just got aged-out of the accounting department. But she's SO great at crunching numbers and finding deals that you've made her the Listener Advocate For Low Prices. Every day you shoot a text to the database with:

• Cheapest gas price
• Lowest price for a loaf of bread
• Milk (which is soaring)
• Pet food (soaring because of grain prices)
• Beer
• Airplane tickets ("Frontier has a deal today and today only; RT to Reno for $79)
• Family entertainment ("the zoo is having a free open house for their new grizzly exhibit")
• Live music ("Tim Mahoney is playing the Cabooze tonight. No cover and two-for-one Bud's until 10 pm")

This could be ridiculously large. Could clients get involved? Absolutely. But it needs to be presented as non-commercialized because once it's perceived as just shilling clients, you lose all credibility.