CPR Promotional Check-Up - Jul 6, 2020

Things You Hide, For $500 Alex

The stupid amount of buzz being generated by a benevolent person in the Bay Area has not even begun to abate. It’s like the Fugitive™ but way bigger. Someone took a few thousand dollars and found a way to make it stretch out over a few weeks and turn the market upside down.

And a bunch of you have local versions about to pop. I would say that’s good. I’ve done this before so here are a few things to keep in mind:

• If you are the first in your market on any kind of #hidden(thing) milk it for a few days before you pop that it’s you. We’re so desperate to be loved and approved we tell people everything up front. Why do you think the hysteria is so big in SFO? Because there’s “mystery” to it. Again, like Fugitive™, as soon as it becomes a radio contest, the amount of people who will care will drop off dramatically.
• Unless you are a Newcap station where they revel on causing trouble and basking in the international publicity they inevitably get, don’t do it in a library. Or on private property. Remind the people that it will be in reasonably plain site and that no digging or trespassing or climbing will have to be done. But handle this in the Tweets. Again, as soon as you have official rules, it becomes a contest and no one will care.
• Make sure you have someone with a camera watching and getting the find on video. Tweet it as if the mystery person was watching…they’re always watching.

This is about to be done with gas. Good. Gas is always a great prize.

What else can you hide?

Microphones Bug’d is one of the all-time great promotions. Ask and I can walk you through it.

Followers Fakebook is a great social media promotion. You have a “follower” or “fan” with a prize. You just have to ask everyone a phrase. It could be anyone in the market.

Mistakes As done by Hot in Norfolk for April Fools Day. There were 37 errors on their website. Spot them all and win.

Logos The old “find the hidden logo” on the website ploy.

Wieners Based on my Inbox, lots of you have meat and grills to award this summer. Cool. “Find Our Wiener”. (same as the logo thing)

Medallions Since 1952 the St. Paul Pioneer Press has been hiding a medallion during the Winter Carnival that’s worth a large cash prize. You need to live here to truly “get” how large this is. A daily clue in the morning paper sends families and teams of co-workers all over the city looking for the thing. Done by KDWB/Minny and 93Q in Syracuse at their respective state fairs for Bieber tickets.

Laminates First done by a Country artist with a day off, time on his hands and a bunch of passes for the next night’s show. Tweeted clues led fans to laminates hidden all over downtown Chicago.

Meaning If you don’t know what My Three Songs is, shoot me an email. Basically it’s a daily feature and the first person to call in and ID the common thread all three songs shared, wins.

Spintern

About ten years ago at one of their annual Hedonism broadcasts, Q-104 in Halifax used a young woman from the promotions dept. as The Human Scoreboard so that frolickers in the pool could be kept apprised of hockey scores from back home. And it was good.

Prize wheels? Aren’t so good. And you’re going to find yourself at least two or three times this summer at events with every other radio station in town. And it is a given that at least two of them will have prize wheels. If I was at an event with 100 or 200 or 200,000 people and I had the same game as the competition, I’d curl up in a fetal position and sob like a four year-old. And it’s just not stations; I went to the Minnesota State Fair last summer and counted over 40. There were three in the Dairy Building alone.

Spintern would crush every little tabletop prize wheel in it’s path. Could be done with either a customized spinners or with one of these with a larger and painted circular board nailed to the top and spun Wheel Of Fortune style.

The hook is that there’s an intern on it.

Visualize: radio station with geeky intern and a table top wheel (attached) or a screaming intern spinning around and stopping at a prize.

Bing bang boom. That was easy.