CPR Promotional Check-Up - Apr 11, 2023

Gas Blast

2/3’s of the best contest methodologies in Radio came out of Power 96 in Miami. And the ONE contest that most destroyed the phone system was Cash Blast. It was presented as the world’s easiest contest: “We’re opening up the phones for 20 minutes and if you get through and we answer, you win $96.” After every song in that 20 minute period, the announcer would read off some more names that he’d taken. It sounded…huge.

KAJA in San Antonio had 900 tickets to a George Strait stadium show and announced the times for ticket blast on social media.

And next week, a station will be doing it with $50 gas cards.

As a methodology, “blast” is great and could be done with anything. You can overthink prizes. Any kind of summer ticket or even food items would work. It’s all in the presentation and the imaging of taking a hundred winners. Ask me and I’ll walk you through it.

For The Lovely© and Well-Coifed™ People Down The Hall In Sales

Earth Day is an incredibly under-utilized promotional and sellable opportunity. And I don’t think I’ve seen a soft drink request in a decade that doesn’t involve terms nature, environmentally friendly events and terms like “natural” and “refresh”. This April 22nd (a Friday) is the 53rd anniversary of its recognition.

I’m big on the term “acknowledge”. You just need to “acknowledge” that it’s Earth Day. It could be a web topic about ways to increase your mileage on your car. It could be a graphic. It could be some TOF ID’s with chirping birds. It could be a weekend when you include free grass (seeds) with your prizes.

The Transit Company I can’t think of a market where they don’t come and ask for a promotion every April. It could be as simple as what 94.9 in Cincinnati did which was to have co-host do her show from a bus. It could be to wrap one of the bus’s and debut it with a big launch party on Friday the 22nd. The station in Charlotte tied in a company that served organic coffee and every morning that week were on a different “line” giving it away for free.

Imaging That was easy ---> soundcloud.com/cprpromo/sets/earth-day

All Things Organic The youth group at my church sells organic coffee as a fundraiser. Could you get hemp book bags, fill them with coupons and samples from clients, and either do these on-line or out on the streets?

Bicycles Big day for people to (at least be encouraged to) ride their bikes to work. I saw a station in Minneapolis sponsor the “bike lot” at a big summer festival. Ride to Taste and leave your bike for free in a big enclosed area.

One Hug At A Time One of the oldest and quickly becoming cliché’d launch bits for a morning host is to go and sit in every seat in a stadium. I never quite understood that. But then, I like watching “Boy Meets World” in Telemundo. KS-95 started their morning show in Minny by having them go out and try to shake hands with every listener in town.

What if you morphed these and had the morning show go out on Earth Day to a park and hug every tree in it. Walk up, thank them for the clean air, give them a hug and add “I love you man!”

Shaken, Not Stirred From B-103.9 in Ft. Myers where in ‘09 they did“Earth Week”. “When it’s time to save the planet, the 18th caller will shake our Earth Tree and win whatever falls out. Naples Zoo tickets, Katy Perry tix, Maroon 5 tix. Everyone who wins also gets a tree seedling to plant and help make the earth a little bit greener.”

The Station That Gives You Wood McDonalds in the Twin Cities does an annual thing. On that Saturday every store in the 11 county region has hundreds of little bagged saplings. Free. Just some in and get one. And I do. Why? It’s a FREE TREE. Why wouldn’t I? Got a nursery that wants to play? Here’s the hook. These are the people who do them. They’re the Bag & Tag Promotional Trees and you can get customized artwork, ie: CLIENTS. itascagreenhouse.com/page18.html

Free Grass!!! KSFM in Sacramento successfully landed on the radar of the local police when they gave out Ziploc baggies of grass (seed) with their weekend contest that also included Snoop tickets.

Leafies Selfies but with a nature feel to them.

Really Not That Huge Of A Departure Chet and Spence at KLUC ran recycled bits for their morning show on Earth Day.

Actual Global Warming Intern. Magnifying glass. Classroom-style globe you might find at a thrift shop. On-line pool on how long it will take him to set it on fire just using the sun’s power.

What Would Google Do? Six years ago they surrounded their logo with forest wildlife. Got a “0” in your dial position? Stick a spinning globe in there. Or turn the site green for the day. Or, just blow it off. Everyone else will. Which, from my school of thought is reason TO do something.

Actual Gerbil Power This has been bandied about by a couple of stations and no one has yet pulled it off. For Earth Day you’re taking the station off the grid and having it powered by a gerbil. Website is just a live (not) shot of a gerbil running in one of those little things. Put a sticker behind him and PRESS RELEASE THE WORLD. (It’s just a continuous loop shot of him/her/it running. In a perfect world they would pause and the screen would dim just a little)

Or Actual Human Power In 2014, 104.1 in Hartford was actually powered by a DJ on a bike. Live For 175 is the biggest awareness campaign in Radio. It’s done by Steve Kicklighter at Kiss in Boise, and until your morning guy stays awake and broadcasts for 175 hours or runs a marathon every day for a week to call attention to child abuse, you can’t possibly fathom how huge this is. And in 2013? They had it powered by humans.

Festivals There’s going to be stuff in every market. Be there. Duh. But have some common sense about your setup. Having a big gas powered generator belching smoke will kind of make you look stupid.

For The Website Have some tips from home repair and auto maintenance people on basic “any idiot can do this” (that would be me) suggestions for cutting down on AC use and increasing gas mileage. Go. Sell. Now.

The Diminishing Ice Pack Few years ago on one of those temperate Houston days in July (read: 108) Hot froze some tickets in a frozen H (hotel banquet ice carver did it) Guess how long until they “melted out” and fell to the pavement, to win them. This has “Earth Day” written all over it. The prize could be whatever you have immediately available and you needed a topical hook.