CPR Promotional Check-Up

A Surprising Phone Starter

Sandy Waters from 98PXY in Rochester was once giving me crap about taking my daughters to the American Girl Place in LA. She got on the air and bagged on people who would drop $100 on a doll. Whoa. Phonal Explosion. (BTW: we had Olivia fake a seizure and while people were crowded around her, we stuffed merchandise in Sophia's double-lined jacket.)

1st Quarter NTR

First, are you maximizing every possible Sales op this quarter?

Next thing you should do is look at every Hallmark Holiday in Q1 and decide what you can do to make rev off them:

Superbowl: To do a club event or give someone a big screen TV for the night instantly qualifies you for an exciting career in the culinary arts. KSFM did an NTR event in a hotel ballroom called The Betty Bowl. 1000 drunk women with male strippers. Beer sponsor and they split the door.

Valentines Day: To do a flower giveaway on the air instantly qualifies you for an exciting career as a docent at the Museum Of Fiber Art. KDWB did a version of the Today Show wedding and did The $25,000 Wedding with listeners picking the couple and then choosing all of the (straight from clients) elements like dresses and rings and reception halls.

St. Patricks Day: To do a club event with green beer instantly qualifies you for an exciting career as a crossing guard. One station did "My Big Fat Irish Wedding". Leprechaun races. Do a pub crawl to client's locations. This is the 3rd largest adult party night of the year. We can do better then green beer.

Okay, once you get your Hallmark's in their proverbial rows, what then? Q in Memphis did Biggest Loser, which was a spin on KZIA's Greed Diet. It was massive and they made serious bank off it. I have the proposals. Q-104 in Halifax did a great slot tourney in Q1 a couple of years ago. Radiowave in Windhoek is doing it right now. Casinos can be so much more then just club gigs. Poker runs. Weddings. You can do a lot at a casino.

Hot 99.5's Baby Idol was their follow up to "MILF Madness" (fell in March during the NCAA tourney) and got insane hits and has many many ops for clients. I have some info from Toby Knapp is you'd like to see it.

If you've thought about doing a school spirit contest for '08, it's too late. The kids are settled in and already burned out. The next time to do one would be in January. And there's always a softdrink or snack chip or candy sponsor. Hell, KDWB in Minny established a long and continuing relationship with a bank when they first did Pennies From Heaven.

Now, we move on to events...

Expos, Shows & Other NTR Events

I was very very very fortunate to have spent the formative years of my career watching and learning at WLOL in Minneapolis. It was an Emmis station that did so much, so well, that I had to spend the next few years trying not to compare everything to it.

It was probably the first station to ever have a full-time Vendor/Co-op person. She was 20, fresh off the Iron Range of northern Minnesota and is now GM at Power in LA. She helped steer the station towards doing NTR events that brought in large numbers of clients and a massive amount of non-spot revenue.

From a purely Promotion Director viewpoint, I love anytime you can fill a mall with booths and stages and several thousand people. So here are some of things I've seen, heard or done.

Career I've done a few of these. Colleges, universities, companies who are recruiting, trade schools and the military were some of the vendors. With so many people looking at changing careers, look at who is advertising on TV during the day. Seriously, go to the break room and flip on UPN 45 right now. It's all career schools. That's ridiculous; they should be spending on you. Culinary Institutes. Medical Data Transcription schools.

Ski One of the now-CBS stations in Sacramento used to do this. You should always know what is the seasonal lifestyle recreational choice of your audience. At this station it was skiing and snowboarding up at Tahoe. So they rented out the expo hall at the fair grounds and sold booth space to ski resorts, makers of equipment, schools, and even ski-related video companies. For activities they had demonstrations and one of those indoor snow-less ski slopes. Again, you need to know the lifestyle of your audience.

Kids Did this as the Kids Care Fair in San Francisco and the Baby Fair in Minneapolis. For parents (and expectant parents), they eat this stuff up. Various contests like diaper crawls. Demonstrations and talks about all sorts of baby care topics. The list of potential clients is almost unimaginable. In the Twin Cities they sold boothspace to Kathy Smith the fitness lady, who came in touted her video on how to get back into shape after being pregnant. Lots of vendor money out there. You just have to go after it.

Women's It's ironic that something Radio started, we're now competing against as firms go around the country putting these things on. In Charlotte we geared it towards working women, so there was a hook to it. The Summit stations (now either Radio One or CBS) did "For Sisters Only" and these were absolutely huge. I went to V-103's in Baltimore about ten years ago. There must have been 10,000 people in the expo hall.

Pets If you are a Pet Person, you are REALLY a Pet Person. I am. And if a station in the Twin Cities did an expo that featured products, games and free stuff (the sampling is what will draw the people), I would be there in a heartbeat. KSFM did this as "The Doggy Dash" and had several thousand people come to get information, buy stuff, participate in contests and load up on the freebies.

Fitness A thing from the Twin Cities, the GM at the time was a 30 year-old woman who was a fitness nut and made the Sales people go to her fitness studio. It was like a religion to her. But it was also very very lifestyle for our audience. A really stupid number of vendors sold into it. Everything from vitamins to videos to fitness clubs to exercise equipment to diet gurus. Several stages scattered throughout the mall with aerobics demonstrations and competitions happening on them.

Pizza If there was a "universal food" this would be about as close to it as you can get. The concept is simple. Approach the "mom and pop" restaurants that would never have enough cash to buy a big schedule and try to compete in advertising with a Dominos or Papa Johns. But would have enough to buy into this. Get some spots and a booth. Do it at an expo hall or hotel ball room. For the price of admission attendees would get to enjoy sample sized portions from all the vendors. A soft drink or beer sponsor would only be natural. Have people taste and vote for the Best Pizza In (Market)

Psychics I got dragged to one. Long story. It was packed.

Regional Cuisine People love to eat. And many markets have a genre of food that is specific to them. In Charlotte we did a Barbecue Fest. There are only half a million mom and pop barbecue joints in that market. Same concept as with the Pizza. One of the stations in California did this with Salsa.

Travel You need only look through the Travel section of the Sunday paper to look for your leads on this.

Wedding These are big money and the competition is tight. Magic in Colorado Springs tied into a good one last year. But since so many of these have been around and established for so long, you need a hook. Like Wild in Oklahoma City when they did a Wedding Fair on-line. A virtual wedding expo.

Techxpo CBS in Austin did this as "Dot Com As You Are" at the convention center downtown. Focused entirely on computers, computer schools, internet services, web-based industries and all of the related gaming products that are out there.

Cheer Off WLOL did this with highschool dancelines and I did this with highschool cheerleaders in Charlotte. Think of a product that is targeted towards 15-18 year-old girls and give them all gift bags filled with swag. Pepsi was the sponsor down south. Target in the Twin Cities.

Family WPGC did something based on families and the products that were geared towards them. Big.

I miss any? I'm sure I did. But, again, the best starting point is with the lifestyle of your audience.