CPR Promotional Check-Up - May 20, 2014

Concert Weaponry

I spent some time on Monday helping a station strategize a big concert battle they have looming. Some reminders.

• Whoever has the most bodies will win
• You want to be the first thing they see and the last thing they see when they arrive and depart, even if that means you need to set up five blocks away. Or two miles away with banners at KSON in San Diego
• "But they won't let us on the plaza" or "It's neutral so all we're getting is a small space for our canopy"
• "They won't let us do any kind of stickers"

In order:

1. Cheerleaders are great. You put them in shirts and have them man all the corners and avenues leading in. In exchange, go out and broadcast from their next car wash.
2. Do a schematic and map out all of the signage locations leading in. Think out how people will be arriving. What roads. What highways. Use highway message boards. Do sidewalk stencils on all of the sidewalks leading to the venue.
3. But they can't tell you what you can do OFF SITE. And if you do have a canopy, you want an activity or thing that will build a crowd. Nothing is sadder than in intern with a prize wheel and no one is standing there, while across the plaza there's a crowd watching people play Musical Chairs for front row seats.
4. Laminates. They're cheap, they won't get stuck on the facility walls afterwards and people will keep them as swag.

Dysfunctional Family Four Packs

About to be done at a station: the parents win two tickets and the children get a really violent DVD and Lunchables to eat while they're home alone, waiting for mom and dad to get back.

Weekend's are "vibe contesting". Don't ever forget it.

An Actual Radio Beach House

KLUC in Las Vegas and several other stations have done faux beach houses as their weekend broadcast location. Produced in-large-part ahead of time. Didn't matter. They still sounded more tapped-in to the lifestyle then the station across the street doing the remotes.

Power in Miami, The Beat in Austin and Xtreme in Honolulu have all undertaken the arduous task of actually hosting a beach house. It's work. Not going to lie. A station-to-remain-nameless is bringing back the bit starting in a couple weeks. Every Friday will be live from one, with hundreds of invited (winners) listeners joining them.

People always ask me what the coolest promotion I've ever seen was; hands down the beach house in Hawaii.