CPR Promotional Check-Up - Jul 10, 2023

Back To School

Your clients are planning their BTS programs, so your head should be there too. And sadly, most stations ignore it except for the prerequisite remotes at CVS. And if you are any form of a Contemporary station, this is the time to be getting the kids reattached to Radio and showing them new ways to use us. So here are a few things to consider.

• If you’re going to do any kind of School Spirit contest, there are two time periods when they’re most effective: September and January. Any other time and they’ve got too much other crap going on. “Highschool Survivor” is the best methodology that I know of, and starting in 2009, began being done as Last School Standing). If only because it’s still fresh and hasn’t been discovered by the rest of Radio. Questions? Call me. “Pennies From Heaven” (as done by 98PXY and Power 96) and The Can Jam (done by KUBE) basically awarded concerts to schools that collected the most pennies (for charity) and aluminum (for recycling). Normally you’d to want to offer a concert. That’s the best prize. But even having someone come out and spin for a dance and they’d be thrilled. Seriously.
• App School. Not only should you be encouraging kids heading out to college around the country/world to take you with them, but if possible, have them log in and let you know where they are. On a map, post little school pennants to show where you have people listening on the app.
• Shoes and haircuts. You can overthink prizing. If you had shoes or haircuts to give away in late August, boom, you’ll get some engagement.
• Project Pencil Case. This was the name for JACK-FM in Vancouver’s contest that awarded $100 to teachers so they could buy supplies. 96.1 NOW-FM in awarded skydiving to the educator who raised the most supplies. How cool is that?
• College Survival Kits: send students off with toothpaste, a comb and gift cards to places like Starbucks and Dominos.
• Bracket To School. Social media has done all our research for us. If you get on and start taking about your favorite school lunches, people will pile in or on. So Rob & Joss at KyXy in San Diego did that in 2021 and it was sponsored by a grocery store. Random voters got gift cards to the client and one of the people who voted for what was chosen #1, got it prepared for them by Joss.
• Last year they did it with Back To School fashion, or, what were their 42 year-old female listeners wearing when they went to school. Sponsored by a mall.
• And Rob a dramatic reading of “I entrust her to you” about a dad sending his little girl off to school. Stream Rob And Joss Bequeath by cprpromo | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
• Principal For A Day is fantastic. They started it at NOU in Indy and got Biebs as a Principal when he was just hitting. I believe they got 800,000 texts.
• Charitable campaigns. Most stations miss-the-boat on doing stuff that either helps highschool students, or rallies them together to do something big in the community. Sweet in Omaha did a drive to collect used musical instruments for local kids. They called it “Band Together” and it was focused on helping kids who couldn’t afford to buy or rent instruments for participation in their schools music programs. School Supply Drives are invariably large.
• Most School Supply Drives are vibeless entities that are just another lame begathon with no premise or purpose. The set up in Orlando was that the school district was running Y2K compliance checks on their computer…and it kicked out Paco’s name. He’d never returned “Yes Billy, Your Body Is Changing” in 6th grade. The fines were up to about $18,000. They’d look the other way if he could help them with getting needed items for students from low-income families.
• The always cool Island 106 in Panama City did The Back To School Hang Out and hung their night guy, DJ No Sleep from a crane until they raised 2000 backpacks. Great promo.
• Sure, giving away some spa treatments to weary moms the week the kids go back to sc…zzzz…sorry. Nodded off. Hot 89.9 in Ottawa did Back To School Botox.
• Be prepared for ALL of the listeners posting photos of their kids going off to school for the first time. A smart station would do gallery on FB and solicit from proud parents. Mix in Wilmington did it last year, as have Y in Fargo where they called it Sidewalk Heroes.
• Database. I’ve pounded this before and I’ll pound it again. If you have a listing of all the area schools, their Activity Directors, the school papers, the cheerleader advisors, and the names of the mascots and team schedules, then you’ll be ready. Wild in SFO had the best database that I know of. It was nuts. But in a good way.
• Highschool newspapers. If you email them a press release, they will print it or post it. So if some 11th grader won the front row tickets to your concert, send a press release to her paper. And your night jock should be on the distribution list for all of these papers. It’s always nice to have this info handy; it’ll make you sound very very tapped into what’s happening in the schools if you can mention star players, teachers and accomplishments by name. Power in Miami regularly sends movie tickets to school papers. The kids are thrilled to be able to see and review a movie for free and Power gets all kinds of love in the printed reviews.
• The High School Press Conference. I lobbed this out at stations until KDWB jumped on it. They had JC from N’Sync coming through and were kind of un-decided on what to do with him because, well, he was JC from N’Sync promoting his solo CD. They sent invites out to every school paper and the first 40 that replied were given a phone number to call at a specific time. They then were given directions to a secret location and 90 minutes to get there. (Conference room at The Doubletree). Once there, the reporters and photogs got to ask him anything they want and pose for pictures. We take this crap for granted. 17 year-old Debby from Richfield High School? Biggest afternoon of her life and KDWB got crazy love in the papers. Wild in Atlanta did this, on-line. KILLED.
• Yearbooks. Another bit from Miami is to get autographs and well-wishes from every artist or celeb who strolls through the building. “Congrats class of 2019 from Arianna Grande!” All of these are combined and laid out and printed with a logoed watermark as inserts for year books. In May they would go and hand out tens of thousands of these and they would go into the yearbook and stay there, pretty much forever.
• Backpacks. These are essential Back To School prizes. Wild in Albuquerque did Back Pack To School and had logoed backpacks full of prizes for on-air giveaway. Extreme in Vegas did it and filled the backpacks with Discmen and other cool toys that any teen would be into.
• Back To School is a BIG financial hit on families. So what if you did "Back Pack To School". For a reasonable price, through the station website you could purchase a logoed-like-a-NASCAR back pack. Filled with?
  • Snacks like individual packs of raisins or juice boxes.
  • Certificates for clothes and shoes
  • Supplies like paper, pens, Crayons and a calculator.
  • A day at a spa for mom
  • Maybe a free pizza for the first day of school dinner
  • A reusable nylon lunch bag logoed and perhaps a coupon in-itself, by a client.
  • Mobile minutes
  • Hair cuts
  Honestly? There are probably twenty other clients you could get in there. And make sure that you make a cash donation for every backpack sold, to a school lunch program.
• Jamz in Greenville annually does a free haircut day right before school starts and it’s massive to be beyond belief.
• Teacher Fear Factor. This is something that came up at a recent brainstorming session. Basically you’d get one teacher from each school to do wacky and gross stuff, all with the hopes of winning a concert for their students. This has CNN potential. There is a reason why TV covers every teach-getting-their-head-shaved-because-their-kids-read-their-goal-of-books bit. It’s visual.
• Limos. Anytime you can send a kid to school on the first day of classes in a limo, that’s big. What would be bigger? How about doing it with your station vehicles. KGGI in Riverside called this “Loco For Limos” and the phones imploded with kids trying to win. Power in Miami delivered them in a convertible.
• Highschool Football. I would hope that this is something you don’t need to be reminded about. And don’t limit yourself to one game a week. In theory, you should be able to hit four or five if you plan correctly. The call-ins and the visibility are why you do this. And spread it out: don’t hit the same schools over and over. I’ve done these patrols sponsored by Pizza Hut and later Pepsi. One station has it sponsored by a local bank and every Friday night, some kid at some game, is taken out on the field to attempt a fieldgoal for a $10,000 scholarship. Like a lot of stations, 99.7 NOW in San Francisco goes out and does High School Takeovers on game days.
• Everyone is doing podcasting. You would recruit one of two students from each school to be your Spodcasters (sportscasters who post podcasts). Every Friday night after the game they’d submit a 3-5 minute ‘cast with some audio highlights and video too, if possible. Someone from Promotions would review for content and then post. 20, 50, 100 new podcasts up every Saturday. All while teaching the kids new ways to use radio.
• Perfect Attendance Record Tracking. I did this in Charlotte and we offered a dance to the school with the best percentage of attendance over a one month period. It required having an intern call the attendance offices every day, but big deal. HUGE.
• Cheerleaders. Get them on the air every Thursday night. Be sure to press release the school papers in advance, and try to get something prerecorded by the night jock, on their morning announcements that morning, to remind them. Like, “Hey Forest Lake, this is Ryan from KS-95 and be sure to be listening tonight at 8, when Staci, and Dan and Sonia and the rest of the FLHS cheerleading squad are in the studio with me.” Or something to that effect. Instead of having them come to the studio, go do the show at a cheerleaders’ home.
• AMP in Boston was the first station to take it to the next level when they still didn’t have any air talent: they had squads host the night show. They picked communities that they needed and got a LOT of ears tuned in.
• Malls. They’re probably already beating you up for promotions. Fashion shows are good. So is “The Dream Dorm” which I’ll walk you through if you call me. Or “Backpack Or No Backpack”?
• Don’t forget colleges and universities. They’ll usually have lots happening the first week or two of classes and it’s great to get tied in to this stuff. Wild in Tampa did The Back To School Bunker that had them living and broadcasting from campus housing for two weeks last year. Singularly one of the biggest things in that stations’ history. A couple stations are going to be greeting that new students on “move in” day and using the street team and jocks, will be making friends-for-life when they help the kids and their parents unload and move-in.
• Need something you can stick a bunch of clients on? Dry erase boards to hand out on Move In Day. Things that can go on their dormroom doors. Pizza. Bars. Clothing stores. All could get logos on there.
• Ditto with Do Not Disturb signs. B-96 in Chicago has done a great job with them.
• Campus Invasions. Done by WiLD in Tampa, B-96 in Chicago, 94/9 in San Diego: it’s a sales promotion that is an excuse for you to hang out on campuses. I have the San Diego sales piece if you’d like to see it.
• Another school spirit texting campaign, from Russ Allen with Pamal in Gainesville. Hot in Houston, Z-90 in San Diego, Power 96 and quite a few other stations have done versions of this.

Kids text their schools name to the station and the school with the most text messages wins a concert or appearance from an artist.

Whatever text message provider the station uses will automatically tabulate the votes, which makes it easy on the station.

And the station could monetize the school spirit contest by selling it to a client. Each time a kid sends a text message they get a reply with some mention of the client. It could be:

“CONGRATS! U just won a free McDonald’s QPC. Show this msg by xx/xx to get ur sandwich.”

or

“Thanks 4 voting. U didn’t win a QPC but vote often 4 ur school to increase ur chance of winning.”

One in every 100 (ratio can be set by the client) would win a Quarter Pounder with cheese. And we all know, no kid is gonna go into McDonald’s and just get their free sandwich and leave. They’ll also buy something (fries, coke) and they wouldn’t dare go in without their friends so traffic is driven into the joint.

Listeners are prompted through on-air mentions and :10 & :30 commercials that run in sales inventory.