CPR Promotional Check-Up - Aug 17, 2018

Orajel Theater

One of the stations has a client that is bringing in about nine "shows" to the local performing arts center and wanted ticket contesting. As opposed to creating a different methodology for EACH show, the idea if to have one methodology that will come back for each on-sale.

And that would be Orajel Theater. The morning show acts out a scene from a movie but the female producer would be numbed up on Orajel and will drool, slobber and slur her lines. ID the film for the tickets.

Wired in Saskatoon was the first station I got to try it with Idol. Hilarity ensured(tm)

Commercial Free Hours/Days/Weeks

Back when I started this job, most of the Clifton stations were doing dial position minutes of commercial free music under the moniker of Triple The Music. Contesting was usually tied in to support it and had listeners counting the songs and getting paid by artist/title.

NOW in NYC took it to the next level with Commercial Free Mondays that has now been replicated 1000 times over.

Quite a few stations have adopted CFM and it works. But...there's always a little pushback from clients who see it as labeling spots as bad or a stigma.

With 90 minute music sweeps at Z90 in San Diego, they used the return to music out of the spots, as the cue to call. So...you had the players sitting and listening intently to the spots. The clients loved. Go figure.

One of my favorite April Fools bits is to have people ID errors on the website or on-air. Kind of like the Drew Carey Error Episode. Steve Jones with Newcap said that THAT could be a client appeaser. Run a fake spot every day and be the first to ID it and text in "Bob's Used Auto Glass!" and win. Again, it gets the players to sit through spots

Halloween At The Malls

One of the stations has a mall requesting something for Halloween. The standard go-to bit for Halloween and malls has seemingly always been the "trick or treating indoors" thing. It's great for if you are in a market where your listeners have genuine concerns about their kid's safety. But, say, at an AC station in Seattle? Probably not.

I love pumpkin drops. Look at David Letterman's first couple of years on the air: it was ALL about throwing stuff off buildings.

One of the stations did a promotion with a mall where they had a 400 pound pumpkin hanging in a net from a crane in their parking lot the week before Halloween. You needed to go into the mall and fill out an entry with a guess on how far the farthest piece 'o pumpkin was going to fly when it hit the ground. Closest or one drawn from all the correct guesses, won a $1000 shopping card at the mall.

And on Halloween morning, you're competing for TV time with costume events at schools and dog costumes at the ASPCA and other stuff. Pumpkin drops always get TV.

Like at Q in Halifax. The camera work is ridiculous