CPR Promotional Check-Up - Nov 5, 2018

Television Show Cliché #139

A member of The Gang has their birthday forgotten by everyone else and angst and humor ensues. One of the Newcap stations has a fully prepared kiddies party from a client to award. This would be one way to do that: surprise/ambush a friend or coworker who got overlooked once as a child and it's haunted them ever since and they remind you a few times a year.

God Bless The Silly People

Digging out old calendars from highschool seemed to be a thing, so John & Tammy at KSON in San Diego dug up theirs. https://kson.radio.com/blogs/john-tammy-morning/johns-calendar-1986-lots-lifting-dude-hangs-crossed-out-date-nights-and

Basting & Entering

"Breaking & Entering" has become the defacto replacement/counter promotion for stations in markets with "Christmas Wish".

Hot in Ottawa just did a fantastic job with having listeners alert the station to people who were without power and whose perishables were perishing, ie: rotting. And they went out and refilled their frig.

The Thanksgiving version of Christmas Wish would be to take the Ottawa methodology and base it on people who are going to have a lean Thanksgiving. With the assistance of an accomplice you go and on the day before Thanksgiving get into their house, get it cleaned, do the dishes and fill the frig with turkey and all of the side dishes. And then await them for the video payoff.

The Most Scammable Time Of The Year

If you do "Christmas Wish", then you are familiar with the avalanche of Tales 'O Woe that will descend on you when you announce the promotion. There are also going to be opportunities in the market for a morning show to go in and save some family, who has experienced a calamity or misfortune, and their home/holiday/child's medical bills.

I'm ALL about that. You can't beat a radio station that doesn't wait for big national charities to bring them radiothons, but instead jumps on these "local interest" news stories. But you should also know that...wait for it...there are bad people out there who will seize on the good will of others. When I worked at Wild in SFO, Mancow unknowingly helped save Christmas for a family...who turned out to have a record for fraud and the story in the paper DID get the station call letters right. Background checks are so easy to do. It's a good investment before helping out with one of these situations.