CPR Promotional Check-Up

Tonight, On A Very Special "Blossom"...

The reason you can do a "you win if we play a commercial" contest...and the phones explode when you play a promo? Because our promos are often so generic and stale sounding that they're indistinguishable from spots for dog food.

One of the common denominators that I see amongst all great stations? Amazing imaging. Promos that are art, not just a delivery of facts.

I was at Xtreme in Hawaii a few years ago and was sitting around playing pingpong (they had a table in the hallway) with Rob Flanik and the late, great Jay Stone. We were trying to come up with an idea to spice up the jock imaging. My suggestion? Rip off all the stuff the networks use to pound their sweeps programming. "The most shocking ever." "After tonight, (show) will never be the same", "followed by an all new", etc. You get the point. So they did it. F'ing hilarious. Do it.

Clocking The Ho's

What the hell does that mean? Never quite figured that out. Anyway, speaking of clocks, here's a great exercise. Sit down tonight with an assortment of cold beverages and watch three hours of network television. Write down every plug and promo they do. What are they selling hard? How often? How far out?

Radio, often, does a horrible job of selling it's own shit. It's almost as if we're afraid to toot our own horns. TV "gets" it. Watch and learn. They pound it.

Free Door. Down.

I worked at a station where we had an autograph wall. If an artist rolled in, we'd give him/her/them Sharpies and got them to tag the wall. It was one of those things that we didn't even think that much about. Just to show you how desensitized we became to our gigs and the perks that ensued. But if there were listeners or clients at the station, they'd stop and linger, mesmerized, trying to ID all the scribbling and signatures.

Tommy Chuck, when he was at WQEN in Birmingham did an extremely cool "lunch with a band" promotion that allowed families of local troops who are deployed in Iraq, to join 3 Doors Down in a "secret location" to meet, greet and eat. Borrowing their name to spur an idea, Tommy's station got a door, painted it and logoed it, had the band sign it, and then set it up at the arena for people to register for as they entered the show. People listened the next day and if they heard their name, could call in and win the door. Simple. And really memorable. You know whoever won this thing is going to keep it in their rec room forever.

Going Mobile

Concert season is barreling down on us and soon every act with a roadie, an amp and a bus will be on the road and coming to a venue near you. Or will they?

So what're you going to do if some act that is formatically huge, decides to totally bypass your market? In Charlotte, when Madonna stiffed us in '90, we got a piece of shit car and turned it into a mobile petition. Logoed it and had it out at all of our events for people to sign. Then, when it was totally covered with signatures, our morning show drove it to Washington DC and presented the keys to her backstage at her concert. (She politely declined the car, they drove it back and it ended up sitting behind the station on Morehead for about 7 years...4 past the station even being there.) Did she come to Charlotte? Yes. We knew that the second leg of her tour in a year would bring her to the area; we'd created the illusion that she was blowing us off. It was great and Kiss got imaging credit for getting her to bring the tour to North Carolina.