CPR Promotional Check-Up - Aug 29, 2012

For The Morning Shows

"Strangest Career Transition" might be a good topic. My flight attendant from Hartford to Chicago was, in the terms of a soldier in Vietnam, "short". She had a month to retirement. And she didn't care what she said or to who she said it. And her new career, starting in 60 days? Prison guard. I was pre-med and ended up in Radio. There's a topic here.

Cancers

Several of you are working on Bras bits for October. Good. The Beat in Vancouver ran in The Underwear Affair, which is a charitable "run" for "cancers below the waist". It's fun. People get creative. It's about having a fun day with friends and family while helping battle cancer.

My favorite Breast Cancer fundraiser? "Boot Out Cancer" from Radiowave 96.7 in Windhoek, Namibia. 40,000 pairs of brightly colored and logo'ed shoelaces, sold at $5. Do the math. It was off the heezie as the kids like to say.

Prize Criteria

One of the stations has a new sales manager who wanted to give away discount coupons for a chain of sub sandwich shops. You should REALLY have, on paper, criteria for what you will and will not do on-air. This keeps the PD from driving in and hearing Milk Trivia on the morning show. Here's what I would start with. The minimum.

• You need a Prize Value. Wired in Philly started with a Prize Value of $1000. Everything on-air had to be worth (or have a perceived value of ) $1000. One of the smaller Midwest markets has a Value of $50. That still gets you around giving away liter bottles of RC.
• We don't let them dictate the methodology. That's our gig. And we're pretty good at it. It would be like us going into McDonalds and giving them advice on how to make fries.
• We don't do prizes that people have to spend money to use, ie: discounts.
• We don't do trivia based on client's products.
• We don't do "Write Our Jingle".
• Don't get me started on Family Four Packs and Win It Before You Can Buy It.
• "Watch & Win" sucks. There needs to be a bounce back or some hook that will get people to return to win, after we told them to turn off the radio in the first place. We ARE the crackwhores of all media.
• Client "prize packs" need to become tweeked so they are station prizes. The addition of a shirt or something else.
• Prizes should be Lifestyle, Topical or somehow relate to the Music or Entertainment: concerts, movies, sporting events.

I'm sure I missed a ton. Feel free to point out what I forgot.