CPR Promotional Check-Up - Jul 15, 2013

The Snowball Effect

One of the things that I'll sometimes see is a station that is simply "in the zone". They can't not hit the ball. They're, well, on a roll. The problem? It's hard to maintain it, but when you're on a roll, it can be punishing to the competition. 98PXY had about a four month roll a few years ago that stood out from all the other great stuff they normally do. This was a series of "11"'s. One after the other.

And that's your goal: no down time. One thing ends, the next begins. Bang. That needs to be your goal. Your audience has the attention span of a Golden Retriever. You can't let them be mentally idle for even a minute. This relates to...

The Extreme Treehouse Makeover

Okay. I'm a geek. But if I lived in Albany, I'd have tried to enter this Fly 92 contest. Very simple. One listener was selected to have the station, a carpenter and an architect come over and build a COOL ASS tree house for their kid. Stocked with more client swag then you can shake a tree limb at. They did this right on the heals of throwing a backyard prom for a local girl whose school district wouldn't allow her and her Iraq war vet (decorated twice) go to the school dance. Bam. One homerun following closely after another. And on and on.

An Oldie But Goodie

One of the best ever cash contests is something you can get away with doing for $300 or $400 a week. "The Cash Man". "The Money Man". It's basically a training device to educate the audience (and reward them like a Skinner experiment) for answering correctly when someone asks them what station they listen to. You do it out in the community. Send out a promo person with a mini disc, they walk up to someone randomly, ask the question, and give them the money if they respond with the right answer. You make three or four different promos out of each winner and have them rotating. It sounds like you're doing $5000 a week. It's a maintenance thing. No matter what you have going on, this is always happening. Forever. It's Old School but DAMN does it work.

Promo Photos

When training in the summer hires and interns, did you take a few minutes to school 'em on how to capture on digital, all the cool stuff you're doing on the streets? I thought so. Wired in Saskatoon just did a refresher course with the Entourage and here is some of the stuff I suggested they cover:

• Make sure you get listeners with DJ's. Posed is fine. But mix it up. Natural interaction. Having FUN.
• Never post a photo of someone who's not smiling
• If there's a client involved, say Pepsi, make sure none of the people in the photo are wearing a Coke hat
• Go to all four angles. Look for a vantage point. Something up and above.
• You can never take too many photos. That's why God invented digital.
• Every place you go has a hook. If you're at the beach, well, make sure the water's in the background. If you're at a fair, a bunch of people standing in front of your booth is allright, but you HAVE to get a shot of a DJ on a coaster.
• Never ever take a photo of a DJ alone at a booth. That says you're unpopular. Ditto with photos of events before they start, ie: an empty ballroom at the Halloween event, bannered but before people come in.

The Brat Pops Here

One of the morning shows has stumbled across a guy who wants to give them a bigass, nice, expensive grill for giveaway. As exciting as qualifying people all weekend is, or putting it in the Loyal Listener club to bid on could be, what about getting 20 listeners and 20, numbered, bratwurst. Put them on the grill and the last to explode wins for "its" listener.