CPR Promotional Check-Up - Feb 18, 2013

Pothole

The season of cracked axles and flattened tires is almost upon us. If you live in the snow country, you're all too familiar with potholes. Back when Q-102 in Philly was a Clifton station, that market was experiencing a particularly bad Spring. Some streets were literally impassable. And the City was saying that they were so backed up and under budget, it might be months to get these things repaired. So Jerry suggested, "Let's just do it ourselves." The station rented an asphalt truck and sent out the promo staff and jocks with shovels to personally fill in these caverns in front of listeners' homes. THAT'S something Sirius or an iPod will never be able to do. And one of the reasons that station was a juggernaut for so many years.

Pissing Off The Competition

Clifton is the expert at that. So when the competition in Reno started doing a massive group promotion, Clifton had Wild run a promo that basically stated: "We've heard from thousands of you that you hate having to sit through (other station's) awful programming just so you will have a chance at winning lots of cash. So we're going to make it easy; we'll listen for you and tell you when to call them to win. So now you can hear the best music in Reno and not have to sit through stiff after stiff just to play a contest." The funny thing? A good percentage of the other station's winners were from Wild, who would then call and get aired, thanking them for the great music and for helping them win the other radio stations' contest.

Off The Grid

One of the Marketing Directors reached out to me. He's got a station that sponsors MAYBE the biggest summer music event in town. They're trying to continually add new sponsors and elements that won't require staffing because they're always stretched thin.

What if one of the AE's could find a solar client who could set up an array of panels so that the broadcast portion of whatever Jam, Bash or other signature event you do every summer, was completely green? THAT would be something you could tout and is a nice hook to the way you promote it.