CPR Promotional Check-Up - Aug 21, 2013

Yow! It's Hot In The Hot Tub!

"James Brown's Celebrity Hot Tub." One of the better series of sketches in the long and illustrious history of SNL. This little memory cookie got jogged loose today by a client requesting suggestions on how to give away a hot tub that a client is ponying up. Bigger then a contest?: a hot tub that you can bring to all your events.

Mobile hot tubs are out there. Rentable. For mentions? What if that was your "thing" as a jock? Every remote you have you do it from your hot tub. The Essence Of Promotions is to stand out. With every station in town having a van, if you had a hot tub, that would qualify as standing out.

Two Year Colleges

I got a promo request from one of the stations looking for something for a two year college that specializes in career education like dental assistants and accounting and cooking. This is the third such request in a week and judging by what's being run as spots on daytime TV, these people have money. It's got to be a Continuity nightmare. Every other spot seems to be for bartending schools or chef college or computer skills school.

So...

1. What if you created a scholarship fund at the client and awarded tuition to either a returning Iraq vet, or to one of their children?
2. A couple of the stations (Mix in Boise and KZIA in Cedar Rapids have regular morning show bits where the team or a co-host will try a new thing. Like skydiving. The college is all about new things so a sponsorship of the bit would make sense.
3. Have kids write in and tell why their recently divorced/widowed moms need the help and how she always supported them and now the kid would like to give a little something back.
4. What if the morning show submitted a curriculum and taught a one-day class? It could be on broadcasting, comedy, writing, pretty much anything they were passionate about. The tuition or class fees from everyone who signs up could go to a scholarship fund.
5. Post-9/11 when tourism to Hawaii and Vegas plummeted and there were big layoffs in the hospitality industry, Pink Slip Parties were big. Show that you were laid off and get free appetizers or a free movie tickets or some other entertainment cost paid for. These kinds of clients could not only sponsor but could also recruit students at these things.
6. There are always "Best Of..." issues in the local free papers. What if you were to do one on the website and make sure to highlight many of the careers and professions taught at the client?
7. The best spot for a radio station or morning show ever? Was done for a cost of $150...which covered rental of a straight jacket for Mancow. The actual production was done by a video production class at Monterey Peninsula Junior College. What if you had the students create and produce a TV spot for your station. Have a debut party with them. And buy time so that it runs one time. (Obviously more would be better, but I'm just being realistic). They then get copies of it and have something for their resume: they produced a spot that ran on TV.