CPR Promotional Check-Up - Jan 12, 2016

The Next Ice Bucket Challenge?

Thank you to Terry O'Donnell with Mix/Kix (but they won't play Styx???) in Springfield, Mass for stumbling on this LEGOS walk-of-pain. One station is already on it and will be out at a client where people can bring by their $100's in pledges and take the walk for St. Judes.

Best Jock Bio Of 2016

We're in music Radio. I've never understood talent that tried to come off as award winning journalists. This is outstanding. http://www.wror.com/inside-wror/personalities/julie-devereaux-bio.aspx

Best Promotional Quote Of Recent Years

From the lovely and talented Monchai Pungeaw at Peak in Boise:

"The further the remote is from the station, the more opportunities for an unexpected delay to occur"

Since life is exciting enough without getting yelled at on Monday morning because the vehicle was late to the remote at Rite Aid, factor in time, distance, traffic, construction, weather and intangibles like, well, DJ's being DJ's. I'm going to guess that in all of his two decades of Promotions in places like San Diego, Phoenix and Boise, Monchai has never been late to an event.

The Reaction Game

The best, most historic stuff Radio has ever done was the product of a Hall Meeting. It was stuff that unfolded in moments after a story broke. The Boston Marathon is an example. Sandy Hook is another.

The Reaction Game is a great exercise at brainstorming sessions and that I try to work into cluster meetings

You break the group into five teams of four or five or six people each. They each draw a card from a pile and don't look at it until you give them the cue. You set the stage by telling them that it's 10:11 am, they are doing whatever they would normally be doing at 10:11 am, and someone rushes in to tell them (and they all flip over their cards and read):

• Your market was just awarded the pro sports franchise it's been lobbying for for 20 years.
• Your biggest core artist was killed in a plane crash
• The mayor was arrested with a little boy in lederhosen in a hotel room, naked
• There was a school shooting in a suburb
• A gas explosion just leveled a building downtown
• The biggest bridge in town just collapsed
• There was an earthquake in a nearby major city
• Because of a lawsuit by the ACLU, the term "Christmas" can not be used by businesses in your market

Because, again, the best stuff is decisive let's-get-it-on-the-air-and-don't-overthink-it stuff, this is a great exercise in training the staff to think that way. They get ten minutes to plan their reaction to their scenario and then present it to the group. (Steve Jones and I took the sports team card. Our "reaction" to this op included getting a skating arena organist to come in and play our powers for a day: "If you like hockey, then you'll love our organ")