CPR Promotional Check-Up - Dec 8, 2020

A Final Thought

As we put this dumpster fire of a year behind us, I beg you to take a few minutes each day and touch base with people who lost their jobs since March. As someone who has dealt with crippling depression for four decades when everything was going great,I can promise you that knowing other people have them in their thoughts might actually save a few lives.

They Done It Again

iHeart in Dallas basically saved Halloween for a lot of families by creating a giant drivethru experience in October in the parking deck at American Airlines. They brought it back for Christmas as Candy Cane Lane.

Here is one of the TV stories on it. Drive-Thru Holiday Experience Opens At American Airlines Center Parking Garage – CBS Dallas / Fort Worth (cbslocal.com)

Free Trees

The guy who owns the property at the south end of my property planted a few thousand trees when he moved in 15 years ago and he now has a Christmas tree farm. On Friday he sold 58 and on Saturday he sold 172. Those were both records. Kruz from Hot in DC said he went to a lot that sold 500 on Friday and 700 on Saturday. Our observations seem to be backed up in this story. Real Christmas trees bright spot many turning to amid pandemic | kare11.com

It makes sense. And we know that people have been putting more time into every possible celebration in 2020.

So, knowing that people want trees, you should give them trees. And turn their soundsystem to your Christmas station.

HOW you give them away should be as fun and seasonal as you can make it but at the end of the day, a free tree is still a great prize that people might actually listen to the radio to win.

In a buncha years in Radio, I’ve never seen a station that couldn’t get some trees if they made a few phone calls to tree lots and give them a decent value in mentions.

Things You Can Do This December

To some degree you can do stuff outside.

You can do a treasure hunt as witnessed by our little community where the Lions hid a medallion behind a sign at the ball field and started posting clues Facebook on Sunday morning. And people, families, were OUT looking for it.

With Fugitive you gauge the success on how quickly the person gets captured after the final clue. ‘BLI on Long Island? 7 minutes. Kiss in Dallas? 2 minutes. KDWB in Minny? The first time was three minutes and the second time was about 30 seconds. The station in Tulsa? An hour and 45 minutes. It was a debacle.

So, get a basket of Christmas prizes and hide a medallion. The feedback here was “Thank you. Everyone needed something fun to do after the last 8 months.”

You can ski in most markets but at a controlled capacity. So get on the air and promote that the station is going downhill and do some lift tickets. At one of the Stingray stations they had a French Canadian singer who sang while tackling the moguls. ID the song and win.

You can skate. So go out to a rink, play the music and host a skating party. Donate a toy and skate for free.

You can tube. So go out and take over a hill in a park and invite people to join you. Why? Because you can and in the terms of AA, people need an enabler right now.

“Outside” is big during COVID so find your market specific outdoor activity and find a way to enable it.