CPR Promotional Check-Up - Oct 31, 2017

2018 Budgets

One of the stations is working on budgets and is factoring in money for a market visit in 1st Q. My experience is that if someone asks what you'd like for next year and your first response is "money for contesting", people up at that level don't appreciate or understand that as being the first thing you'd ask for. It's not how they're wired to think.

So:

• Think about what would make a great addition to your on-site and appearances. Think beyond the canopy. What would look great, be something different, and would be a hook that your competition doesn't have. CBS in San Diego had/has an electronic entry box for promotions. That's genuinely interesting. Photobooths are great too.
• Part-time hours. Having actual live weekends and having actual bodies out marketing you in the community are huge advantages over competitors.
• I love batlights and have seen stations do both wonderful and dastardadley things with them over the years, including hitting the Power/Phoenix "Monsters Oh Hip Hop" show at Mesa Amphitheater from the 11th floor of the Sheraton across the street. http://www.derksen.com/index.php

Stuff The Bus

This has been done in many and multiple permutations and is set to embark on at least three stations that I know of. First, and this would seem like an obvious, but you want the DJ's living on the bus. If they're not smelly and experiencing discomfort, then who cares?

Most stations that do these kinds of things do them every year, year-after-year, so you really need to tweak it and add a new element every December. Like Chet does with the scaffold in Vegas. To that end; here are some suggestions:

• We're doing "Stuff The Bust" at one of the stations.People stop by andfill an interns top with crumpled bills. (Hey, if you're going to have hot street teamers, you may as well make the most of them)
• Is the announcers' mom available to call every night and read a bedtime story at 10 pm?
• When Mark S. Allen used to do his MDA stunts at KSFM, they always padded the take with t-shirt sales; "I Helped Get Mark S. Allen Off The Desert Island". Stuff like that. What if you sold the op to spend the night on the bus with the jock and the listeners get "I Slept With (DJ) From (station)...And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt" shirts. The station in Cedar Rapidsjust sold $83,000 in shirts for flood relief.
• On nights that you don't have a paid club gig, you should do Club Bus and turn the parking lot into a club.
• The Rock station here did the bus campaign in the early 90's and they moved it for a couple of nights to Vikings games and a U2 concert. If there ARE going to be 15,000 people all going somewhere, it'd be great visibility. Most stations that do this will lock in at one location, or move once in the middle. That's fine...but again...you don't want to miss a buttload of people.
• Can you get a rear project screen and do movies every night in the parking lot?
• Think like a car dealer: get a BIG helium balloon, tethered, with a hanging, weighted, vertical, "Stuff The Bus With (DJ) From (Station)!!!" hanging under it.
• KLUC used the sign spinners last year on nearby corners. THAT was pretty damn cool.
• B-95 in Fresno had all the local TV anchors come out and act out "A Christmas Carole" on the air, with each reading a part.
• We always try to acknowledge people who have stopped by and donated. Can you compile a list and have it scrolling on the website?