CPR Promotional Check-Up

St. Patricks Day

St. Patricks Day is next week and WEEKS ago and I began to field questions from clients. If you're going to honor this celebration to drinking, it's time to start your planning. This holiday is prime for creative weekend giveaways, club promotions and wacky morning show stunts(r). Here's a shopping list of ideas to choose from. Or you can come up with your own or totally ignore the holiday all together. This is America. You have that choice.

• Wired in Philly did Green History Month and ran vignettes that featured historical info on famous Green's of the past. Like Marvin The Martian and Mean Joe Green.
• Kiss in Cincy, five years ago, had a Cinco de Mayo float in that market's St. Patty's Day parade. Jocks in sombreros. Handed out 1000's of jars of Chi Chi's salsa. They were very apologetic. Screwed up their holidays.
• The past few years I've had some Irish radio station contacts. I'll track them down again. Many of you had great interviews with drunken DJ's live from pubs and in one case, the station's float in the parade in Dublin. Great amazing Radio. Granted a marti break from club night with green beer is huge....
• XtremeRadio@104.3 in Hawaii did a night cruise on one of those tourist boats that go out of Waikiki and called it Party Till You Turn Green. The inclusion of the word "green" was about as deep into the St. Patty's vibe as they got. All the listeners really cared about was the mixing, dancing and (massive) drinking on board.
• It's always responsible to promote safe sex. If you got your hands on some green condoms, then they'd be Lepracondoms.
• On the height-challenged tip, KUBE in Seattle got some dwarfs/midgets/little people and taught them to mix. Then they dressed them in green and had mixing Leprachauns at their St. Patricks party. Power 102 in El Paso got a big, angry,over-weight and over-the-hill Leprachaun who was out to ruin St. Patricks Day for everyone. He was bitter about being laid off and in retaliation had hidden a trip to Las Vegas that Power was getting set to give away. The station hid a box of Lucky Charms and gave out clues that people tracked to find it and win the trip.
• One weekend concept would have designated callers choosing between Rainbow #1, Rainbow #2 or Rainbow #3. Kind of a take off on "Let's Make A Deal" and the three door contest. If the contestant makes the right choice and chooses the right door, they'd win a pot of gold. That could be an ounce of gold, gold jewelry or even gold records.
• Do a "Giveaway The Green Weekend" with cash prizes. Work a leprechaun into the on-air methodology somehow, instead of just Caller #X winning money. How about "Beat The Leprechaun"? If you stop him before he blows up, you win.
• Beat The Leprechaun could also be something for your inevitable club gig. Either paint an intern green and tape prizes to them and have listeners beat them off (sounded better in my head) with a Nerf bat, or get a Leprechaun piñata made.
• If you missed the St. Hatricks info from a couple of weeks ago, ask.
• Several stations have done very successful Leprechaun Races in the past. These were basically baby crawls with the kids wearing green diapers and a station logo on the butt. The tots raced for pots of gold (jewelry) for their moms. This is a nice family event. Be sure to get baby sized shirts for all the contestants. WIOG did this: huge.
• My Big Fat Irish Wedding was a great morning show bit from '03.
• 97.9 The Box/Houston did some research and came up with this amazing fact: St. Patrick had a brother, St. Bob who is the Patron Saint of Partying. They honored him on the 17th with a major St. Bob's Day party at a club. Bob's "color" is purple so that was the color scheme for the event. Anyone named Bob got in for free (they trusted you and didn't check ID's at the door), and everyone got a name tag that said Bob. Of course there was purple beer and bobbing for prizes. What about bob sledding?
• In '06 K-Rock in St. Johns took their stunt guy, bodypainted him green like the Hulk, measured his shillagh and you had to call in and guess the length to win a Post Paddy's Party.
• Tevin Campbell was at WPGC on the 17th in '94 so they named it St. Tevins Day in Washington. Why not do the same thing with one of your jocks: St. Nick's Day, St. Spezzano's Day or St. Dave's Day? Use your imagination and have some fun. If St. Patricks Day isn't a big deal with your audience, then create your own holiday!
• Besides being a Hallmark holiday, St. Patricks Day is an excellent excuse to leave work early and drink large quantities of grain alcohol with friends. A St. Patty's Party Posse is one way to get out and impact some of these revelers. The basic idea to hit the streets around 11 am and make van stops at as many bars and taverns as time will allow prior to last-call. You'll sound like you're right in the thick of the action with a phoner from each van stop. And you will be. This is a very simple and effective application of your daily street presence. This concept has been applied over and over for New Years, the Fourth of July and every other Hallmark holiday...and it works every time. 93Q in Syracuse did this with a green bus in '08.
• Hide a pot of gold somewhere in your market and do a Rainbow Report hourly with clues to lead people to the prize. Of course the location you choose to hide the gold should be picked with "press" in mind. Instead of doing verbal clues, stick an auto-respond cell phone in the pot and have people follow ambient background noise to the prize. Being done as we speak with a stolen cell at Radiowave 96.7.
• Irish legend has it that kissing the Blarney Stone brings good luck. In a takeoff from the proverbial "Kiss The Car" contest, get a large rock, paint it green with your logo all over it, place it in a public location and have ten contestants kiss it to win a pot of gold or a trip to Las Vegas, where their luck will come in handy.
• B-95 in Fresno did a Blarney Stone event of a different nature at a club. The first couple of hundred people through the door got a "Blarney Stone" which was a cubic zirconium emerald. All the Blarney Stones were fake except one, which was worth quite a bit. The only way to tell if you got the real one was to bring it to a clients' location to get it appraised. The fake ones looked good enough that many of the people chose to have them mounted on rings or necklaces.
• WIOG had Dashboard Confessional tickets so they had listeners call in and confess their St. Patricks Day transgressions to Father O'Malley. Awesome promo.
• Real Leprechauns Of Genius?
• KUBE used to do a St. Patricks broadcast at a place called Jakes. Among the events they did was a Lucky Charms dive. They filled a wading pool with the cereal and had people dive in to look for prizes. You could bury an emerald or cash (green) in amongst the cereal, too.
• V-103 in Atlanta took 103 green helium balloons up-wind of the city and let them go on the 17th. Each balloon was identified with a number and the first person to catch up with one of these and bring it in to the station won a prize.
• This could be St. Panties Day. Get some logo'ed green underwear and blow them out all day. KKMG in Colorado Springs did this and it was one of their biggest events of 2004. The underwear was worn as admission to the stations club gig. This has transformed into one of the annual bits that the audience anticipates and plans for.
• Green M&M's are reputed to have an aphrodisiac-like quality to them. Why not do a controlled study in the studio on the morning show? Bring in two couples, blind fold them and feed one couple nothing but green M&M's while the other couple gets all the other colors. Have a bucket of cold water on hand in case things get out of control. Each of the participating couples should get a romantic weekend at the Shamrock Inn or other appropriately named hotel.
• KGGI did an audience survey and let listeners call in with their stories of when, where and how they'd gotten "lucky". This could mean many things in addition to the obvious sex angle, including financial, gambling, etc. A trip to Vegas would be a great prize for the best story.
• Fill a pool with green jello and the world is your promotional oyster. Besides being extremely photogenic, it would provide a venue for many contests like the World Championship Jello Flops and an emerald search.
• Why not do an "Ain't Patricks Day" parade for people whose names aren't Patrick? Of course Patricks could still participate, but under an alias.
• Do you have access to one of those cash cubes? Why not set it up on the 17th, fill it with hundreds of three leaf clovers and a couple of the lucky four leaf clovers. Listeners who get a four leaf clover would win some mega-prize.
• KGGI broadcast all day from the Black Angus (appropriately renamed the Green Angus) with each jock hosting various contests and stunts during their shift at the club. At noon time they did the Lucky Lady Lunch Hour and had a troupe of male dancers, wearing nothing but four leaf clovers, perform for the women in the crowd. Maybe giveaway Paddy O'Furniture.
• Wild in Tampa took Beev from the street-team, dressed him in green and had people throw him for distance. Beev is kind of diminutive and they used gymnastic mats to break his fall. Leprechaun Tossing: one of the reasons I got into this fine industry.
• Of course if you can find a little person and train them how to mix, you're GOLD. Photo attached from KLUC in Las Vegas.
• Just doing a club gig with green beer qualifies you for an exciting career in waste management. What if you did Irish Idol, got a karaoke machine, loaded up on music from U2, the Cranberries, U2, the Corrs, U2 and Dexies Midnight Runners.
• KDWB had Gary Spivey in last year for St. Psychics Day.
• One of the stations went "green" last year with Leprechauns pumping ethanol.