CPR Promotional Check-Up - May 7, 2014

Generic Weekend Contest #247

There are a lot of good weekend themes that you can plug any prize into. "Spring Cleaning" (in 1988). "Spy On Your Neighbor" from Wild in Tampa. "Sing In The Shower" from Wild in SFO. I think 98PXY in Rochester was the first to do "The Boss Is Out Of Town" with the airstaff breaking into Kevin's office and stealing back all the stuff he'd pilfered.

(This stuff always requires some theater. If you're just using it as a name, stick with "A Free Movie Weekend." Please)

"Hoarders" is still moderately big. If you don't watch it, you're at least aware of it. What if you create an intern who is in charge of the prize vault (closet sounds "small" and mediocre) and she turns out to be a hoarder. The weekend contest is digging through ALL the stuff Ruby has been stocking away down there. Old cat food. Stacks and stacks of newspapers. Rihanna tickets. Old NKOTB cassette singles.

Fly in Albany created a GREAT "ticket intern" who tied together all their contesting for July and August last Summer.

One of the very large stations is about to play off "Intervention" for the Spring cash contest. What else could you do with "Hoarders"?

"R.A.T." Random Acts of Trash. Announce a random thing that someone potentially could have in their home or office. A cocktail coaster with a logo from Bennigans on it. A ticket stub from your Christmas concert from 2004. A mood ring.

First person to bring one to the station, wins the daily prize.

Gas Gas & More Gas

Historically, going back to the 70's, the price of gas goes up and down and when it peaks some station will take over a gas station and sell it for a discounted price and that evening they're the #1 news story.

As occurred with FRED-FM in Fredericton and Kiss in Boise, and also happened with Jamz in Birmingham.

In Fredericton, they brought back Gas Man, a caped character and got four TV news including this story on a station that owns the competition. All of this for the price of $1200.

Kiss in Boise had a perfect alignment of planets:

• They incorporated the police into the promotion by giving out "Don't Text And Drive" wrist bands
• They kept the location secret but did NOT use the old "We're taking over another station" crutch
• They stickered all the cars
• Please note the pump nozzle in the TV shots: stickered.
• And...they used Gas Man

One of the TV reporters said that Gas Man was the star of the promotion. He was the "visual".

The almost downside to the police involvement was that it ran stupidly smoothly. Six motorcycle officers handled the traffic and it went so quickly that Steve Kicklighter had to purposely slow it down so that there were still cars in line when TV was going for the live shot. (The station did what you ALWAYS do when picking a location; they chose a BUSY street so that there would be mayhem and traffic jams, but it ran like clockwork. Dang.)