CPR Promotional Check-Up - Jan 10, 2014

A Sports Bar Blitz

I was playing Promotion Director in Tampa in 2000 and we had no "set" location that we were obligated to be at for the Super Bowl: great! The station's three jeeps were sent on patrol with cell phones and prizes and starting mid-afternoon, we started crashing sports bars, Hooters, Chilis, TGIF's, strip clubs...any place where there were big screen TV's, food, beer and large numbers of people watching the game. It sounded like we were everywhere. Which is kind of the goal, right? I spent the night in a jeep with Jay from the street-team and we had a blast. The places we hit were thrilled to have us show up and were even happier to get the call-in. Note: we aired patrons for more of a vibe, not the management. This wasn't about giving them free commercials. This was about capturing the essence of the biggest sports-viewing night of the year. The best call-in was from a strip club where the dancers were talking about how big of losers the four or five guys there were. Didn't they know there was a game on??!!

Because The Super Bowl Can Be More Then Just A Viewing Party

One of the more original (in 1974) ideas is to give a winner a big screen TV to watch the game on. A couple of years ago a station in Green Bay took over a movie theater and invited 300 listeners and guests to watch the game on the screen there. Now that's big. KKDA in Dallas does this at a "cinema cafe" kind of establishment and it has people lined up around the block. A cute hook is that they show a football-related movie before the game and bring in an act for halftime.

Z-102.9 in Cedar Rapids did a promotion that allowed listeners to play Wii on the screen at the local IMAX theater. What a great venue for watching bone crunching action? A station has already jumped on this and found out that they can't have food or drink in the theater. Which is fine: just leave it in the hall or lobby.

Kiss-A-Grams

One of my personal favorites because it succeeds in getting the station out and into the workplaces to hang, if only momentarily, with the listeners. The concept is to solicit e-mails from people that want a Kiss-A-Gram delivered to a friend or loved one. In their e-mail they should include the reason why, and a short message for the recipient. Also where and when the person will be on Valentines Day. I've personally done this three times and it's proverbially a ball every time.

On the 14th hit the streets in a limo with a male model and a female model. Visit the recipients at work and embarrass them in front of their co-workers by delivering their Kiss-A-Gram: a kiss from a beautiful model, some flowers, some candy and a certificate for a romantic weekend stay at a hotel. When I've done this, Sales was able to get me everything for mentions in the promos that ran the week prior to the Kiss-A-Gram deliveries. This is always a great promotion. I've seen co-workers send it to a friend who's had a tough year romantically and it's always fun when the model reads the e-mail to the assembled group.