Oday Contests

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved

www.danoday.com/contests
GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

by Dan ODay
HOW YOU CAN LEGALLY

USE THIS BOOK.
GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS AND CONTESTS is a copyrighted
work.
Please do not skip over the following details.

They are important!
YOU MAY NOT DO THESE:
Digital Reproduction: You may not duplicate or distribute any type of
digital copy of this work to any third party.
For example, it is illegal to e-mail a copy of this e-book to a third party. It
also is illegal to post any portion of this on a website, an Internet newsgroup,
or an Internet-based newsletter. Faxing pages to a third party also would be
illegal.
We have deliberately priced this book low enough for any radio professional
to afford.
Every copy of this e-book is encoded with an identifying watermark. In
the event that your digital copy is made available to any third party (as
described herein), the value of our copyright will be damaged. Therefore, we
have enacted a mandatory distribution fee of $500 per incident.
Physical Reproduction: You may not distribute or make available printed
copies of any portion of this document to anyone who does not work for
2007 by Dan ODay

All Rights Reserved

by Dan ODay
your company in the same physical location as you.You also may not reprint
any portion of this document in any type of mass circulated form (for
example, a newsletter, magazine, or journal).
If someone asks for a copy of this book, the only legal and ethical response
would be for you to direct that person to our website
(www.danoday.com/contests), where he or she can order a legal copy at
a very low price.
BUT YOU MAY DO THESE...
If you have purchased this e-book, then you do have our permission to print
as many hard copies of any and all pages for your own individual use and
for anyone else who works at your company and is employed at the same
physical location (i.e., office) as you.
Legal examples:
Printing the entire book (or portions thereof) and giving the pages to
every member of your promotion team.
Printing individual pages for staff members to use at promotion

meetings.
Illegal examples:
Providing a copy of all or part of the digital file that contains this
e-book.
Printing any portion of this book and distributing it to any other

business (or individual employed at another business).
2007 by Dan ODay

All Rights Reserved

by Dan ODay
Printing any portion of this book and distributing it to another property

(e.g., radio station) owned by your company (or by the company that
owns your company) that is located at a different physical address than
yours. (They need to buy their own copies....And weve priced this so
low that they can afford to do just that.)
We also recommend:
Immediately make a back-up copy a digital file of this ebook. We recommend that you keep one copy on your computer at
work and another on your home computer. Youll want to have that
back-up copy in case something happens to your original, because
we wont be able to replace lost copies for you.
And now....
Need a terrific promotional idea?
Just start flipping through these pages.....
2007 by Dan ODay

All Rights Reserved

by Dan ODay
PREFACE
You wont love every idea in this book.
Some are completely wrong for your station. Or your market. Or your own
personal tastes.
Dont use those.
On the other hand, some of these ideas will be ones you do like.
Use those.
Im not trying to be flippant here. Its just that over the years Ive discovered
that when confronted with a resource like this that is so chocked full of ideas,
there are two kinds of people:
1. Those who make a list of all the ideas they cant use.
2. Those who make a list of all the ideas that can use.
People in the first group will be disappointed by this book.
After all, each radio station has its own personality. So does each program
director and each promotion director. Its just silly to think a collection of
hundreds of ideas would fit all of them.
But people in the second group will immediately grasp the value of this book.
Remember your worksheet on Page 320!

2007 by Dan ODay
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Theyll scribble down the page numbers of the ideas they like, so they can
return to them when they need fresh inspiration.
At each new page theyll find themselves thinking, Well, heres how we
would do this one....
I hope youre among the people in the second group.
Chases Calendar of Events
Many radio personalities and producers refer to a publication entitled
Chases Calendar Of Events.
Chases lists various birthdays and anniversaries. It also contains lots of
events that didnt exist until someone submitted them to Chases for
inclusion.
A few of those new holidays e.g., Abet & Aid Punsters Day are
referred to in this book. But the references consist only of the name and
either the date or the approximate time of the year the event is held.
I have identified all items that I believe originated in Chases with a red
asterisk ( * ). A red asterisk before an event name indicates that if you want
more information on the event, you should consult Chases.
(To reprint the details here would constitute a violation of their copyright.)

2007 by Dan ODay
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by Dan ODay
Websites, E-Mail, Texting....

For simplicitys sake, many of the contests refer to entering via postcard.
Obviously, you can choose an alternative method. But be aware of the
challenges (and potential problems) of allowing online contest entries.
Promotion Jump-Start Worksheet
On Page 320, youll find a Promotion Jump-Start Worksheet.
When youve selected a promotion or contest, print the page(s) devoted to
it....
And print out your Promotion Jump-Start Worksheet.
Gather one or two contributing creative minds and take no more than five
minutes to fill in the Worksheet.
For example, you might be able to come up with a better title than Ive given
it. (I chose titles for ease of use by readers of this book. But youll choose
promotional titles designed to sell the promotion to your audience.)
Printing your worksheet and then taking just five minutes to fill it in will give
you a running head start on turning the promotional idea into a reality.
Note: On Page 321, Ive filled in a sample version of the Promotion JumpStart Worksheet so you can see how its intended to be used.

2007 by Dan ODay
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by Dan ODay
* NATIONAL AARDVARK WEEK (March)

Heres a natural prize:
Give away passes for the entire family (not for just two people) to your local
zoo.
Possible Sponsor(s): Local zoo; nature-themed TV channel.

2007 by Dan ODay
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by Dan ODay
* ABET & AID PUNSTERS DAY (November)

Give away prizes to callers who offer puns on-the-air.
Suggested Prizes:
Comedy albums
Tickets to a hot movie comedy
Fun-oriented prizes like free miniature golf, dinner for two at a fastfood joint, etc.
Suggested Gimmick:
The Pun Meter, which measures the groan level of each
contestants pun.
Possible Sponsor(s): Comedy club; comedy-themed TV channel.

2007 by Dan ODay
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ACADEMY AWARDS
Week-long or day-long series of trivia questions centered on previous award
winners.
(Youll find tons of that kind of trivia online, as well as in various trivia
books.)
Prize: Movie passes or DVDs
Hint: Make it passes for four people, not just two.
Possible Sponsor(s): Video rental store (or online service); video download
service; movie theatre chain.

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ACADEMY AWARDS: OSCAR PREDICTIONS

Contestants pick up forms at sponsor locations.
Forms list nominees for each of the major categories: Best Motion Picture,
Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress,
Best Director, Best Original Screenplay.
Note:
Be sure to have the rules clearly limit entries to one per person. Otherwise,
some sharpie will fill out a few dozen forms, mixing & matching the favorites
until one of the forms has to be correct.
(If it were entirely random, theyd need to fill out thousands of forms. But
usually each category is narrowed down to one or two favorite nominees
...and some years its very easy to predict all major winners.)
First Prize for the person who picks all the winners might be a trip to
Hollywood.
Ties: In case more than one correct entry is received, the ultimate winner is
chosen by a drawing.
Possible Sponsor(s): Multiple businesses that want increased in-store traffic.

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ACADEMY AWARDS: OSCAR PREDICTIONS (2)

Have people fill out their selections on a printed form (or online) that lists all
the nominees in the categories listed in the promotion on Page 11.
Entries are filled out and deposited at sponsor locations (be sure to include at
least one big shopping mall to insure many entries).
During the week prior to the awards ceremony, draw one entry per hour,
reading the contestants name on-air.
That person automatically wins two movie passes.
If they call within 20 minutes, they also win dinner for two to go with the
movie.
Either way, though, that persons name goes into a final drawing after the
awards:
For each category, one winner is selected. But to win, the person must have
correctly predicted the Academy Award winner for that category. (Keep
selecting names until each category has a winner.)
Each of your final six winners gets $500. Or, perhaps, a years worth of DVD
rentals.

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* ADOPT A CAT MONTH (June)

Work with your locale Humane Society and each hour give a detailed
description of a particular cat available for adoption.
Upload photos of each cat to your website, along with pertinent info (age,
sex, breed, disposition, size).
Listeners can call the jock to apply for adoption.
Youll want to stipulate 18 years or older for callers.
After youve gotten a caller who definitely wants the cat, announce the
persons name on the air.
Make sure each callers winds up getting a pet without charge; your station
should take care of any fees for shots, etc.
Hint: Get a pet supply store to provide a 90-day supply of kitty litter and
cat food for each new cat owner.

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* ADOPT-A-DOG MONTH (October)

See previous page for the basics of this promotion.

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ADVERTISING: FREE BUSINESS WINDOW ADVERTISING

Your Cash Spotters roam the city, looking for storefronts that feature
homemade signs saying, RADIO X IS MY FAVORITE RADIO
STATION!
The spotter awards $50 to the person who put up the sign, t-shirts to
everyone else in the store or place of business (i.e., t-shirts to employees and
customers alike).

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ALBUMS: THE GREAT ALBUM RUSH

An oldie but a goodie.
Contestant has ten seconds (or some time limit tied to your frequency) to
name all the titles & artists of all albums currently on your playlist.
The contestant is awarded all the CDs she manages to name within the time
limit.

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AMUSEMENT PARK: TAKE OVER AN AMUSEMENT PARK

Everything is free to the pubic, except for the food and souvenir concessions.
Your station picks up the tab for the day perhaps by trading a spot
schedule with the park.
Or you can charge a canned good or two for admission and benefit
charity without discouraging listeners from attending.

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JOHNNY APPLESEEDS BIRTHDAY (September 26)

Prizes: Apple pies are an obvious choice.
So are Apple computer products (including iPods and iTunes downloads).

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APRIL FOOLS DAY (April 1)

Various stations have pulled stunts like trading airshifts with another station in
town.
This can work regardless of the two formats.
Two head-on competitors exchanging jocks can reveal to the public an
attractive spirit of friendly competition.
On the other hand, completely different formats (rock vs. classical, rap vs.
country) offer irresistible contrasts for your listeners.
A Different Twist:
Feature guest jocks from within your own station, i.e., your non-air staff.
Have salespeople, traffic people, clerical people do their own shows, with the
regular jocks sitting in to provide technical expertise and lots of kibbutzing.

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APRIL FOOLS DAY (2)

Feature a selection of April Fools Songs, i.e., novelty hits from the past.
Prior to playing each one, announce that its an April Fools Song and open
the phone lines, awarding a cream pie (as in a pie in the face) to the first
person to correctly identify the song by title.
(Dont require them to name the artists, as most novelty songs are recorded
by obscure artists and you want the contest to be winnable by a large
segment of your audience.)

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APRIL FOOLS DAY (3)

You pick the prize.
The contest requires callers to identify that hours April Fool.
Use recorded voice excerpts from famous TV and movie clowns:
Three Stooges, Jerry Lewis, Jim Carrey, Will Ferrell, etc.

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APRIL FOOLS DAY: WERE NOT FOOLIN!

Each hourly contestant is told a supposed little-known fact, offbeat in nature.
The contestant must decide if youre foolin or youre not foolin.
Consolation prize if hes wrong, bigger prize if hes correct.
Go to your trivia books to find relatively little-known facts, and make up your
own phonies.
Example of a Phony Fact:
Russian scientists claim to have trained a chipmunk that can recite selected
passages from Shakespeare.

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ARM WRESTLING CONTEST

Another natural contest to hold in a shopping mall, fairground, etc.
Have your jocks emcee the events, cutting into programming to cover the
finals.
Hint: Have all your contestants sign waivers assuring that theyre in good
health and relieving you of all claims arising from injuries.

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ASTROLOGY: THE ONLY PARTY WHERE NO ONE ASKS,

WHATS YOUR SIGN?
A monthly party for listeners who are born under that months sign.
Each party can feature an astrologer wholl do personalized horoscopes.
Hint: Use the party to do a little listener research, utilizing a not-too-wordy
questionnaire.

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FIRST ATOMIC EXPLOSION, ANNIVERSARY (July 16, 1945)

This contest requires callers to identify great bombs of history from their
descriptions.
Example:
Looks right! Built right! Priced right! Thats what the Ford Motor
Company had to say about the new automobile they introduced in late 1957.
But it didnt sell well at all. In fact, it went on to become the most famous
bomb in automotive history. Name that bomb.
The bomb in question: The Edsel.
Other Potential Bombs:
Heavens Gate (movie)
Turn-On (a one-episode flop TV show of the 1960s)
The IBM PCjr (aka peanut) IBMs hugely unsuccessful attempt to sell a
person computer.

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AUCTION: T-SHIRT AUCTION

KGU gathered up hundreds of radio and record company t-shirts and
auctioned them off, with all proceeds going to an agency that benefits abused
children.
If you tie in to a cause as worthy as that, people will be likely to bid quite
high for unusual, distinctive, or especially attractive shirts.
Hint: Gather a supply of super-special items by having recording stars
personally autograph their shirts.

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BAGEL BREAK
The prize given by WCAO is similar to that given by many other stations:
Bagels & lox catered to a business selected weekly from mailed or e-mailed
entries.
Other stations might use other breakfast menus.
But what makes this promotion unique is how local businesses enter.
Each company tailors its entry to the type of business its in.
The County Clerks office might enter with a facsimile summons; a real estate
firm might write its entry on a cardboard cut-out house, etc.
Youll probably get everyone in the office (that is, in many offices) working
together on the project to come up with the weeks most creative, unusual
entry thereby reinforcing your stations presence in the minds of each and
every one of them.
Hint: Winning entries also go on your website, giving an extra incentive for
the businesses to participate (for the additional exposure).

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BALLOONS: DIRECT MAIL BALLOONS

This is your basic direct mailing with individualized serial numbers (see
Direct Mailing of Sweepstakes Numbers, Page 96), but the numbers are
printed on a custom designed balloon.
The recipient has to inflate the balloon in order to read the number.
Its a proven fact in direct mail that getting the recipient actively involved in
the promotion greatly improves your response rate.
And balloons connote fun for almost everyone not a bad connotation for
your stations image.

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BAND:
THE RADIO X IMAGINARY LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND
This is a fun one.
Many people imitate one musical instrument or another (usually when no
ones watching).
A la playing air guitar.
Put together your own band or orchestra, auditioning members throughout a
week or two over the telephone.
One day might be devoted to guitarists, another to drummers.
The contestantsplay the instrument by making the noises strictly by using
the resources of their bodies.
When youve assembled your musical group, give a public concert.
No prizes, but lots of fun.
(You should, however, award some sort of certificate to the musicians
selected.)

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* BARBECUE: NATIONAL BARBECUE MONTH (May)

Prizes:
Barbecue grills
Hibachis
Steaks
Charcoal
Chefs hats
Barbecue aprons

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BARBECUE:
WIN A STATION BARBECUE IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD
This one is self-explanatory, with the added bonus that each winner gets to
keep all the barbecue equipment (grill, charcoal, aprons, starter fluid, etc.).

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BASEBALL: HOME RUN INNING

WHIO came up with a clever baseball promotion.
Entrants sent in postcards guessing how many hits the Cincinnati Reds would
compile during a specific month.
A good way to involve sports fans.
Suggested Prizes:
FIRST PRIZE: A weekend for two in some faraway city to catch the team
during an important doubleheader with the station paying for all
transportation (including from hotel to game), hotel meals, ballpark admission,
etc.
SECOND PRIZE: Wide-screen TV to watch the rest of the season with

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BASEBALL: SPRING TRAINING TRIPS

If your area has a major league baseball team, they probably preface their
regular season with spring training in either Florida or Arizona beginning in
March when the weather around the rest of the country is lousy.
A good prize would be a vacation to the teams spring training city, hotel &
food, sightseeing money and, of course, daily passes to the teams games.
(This is especially good if your station broadcasts the teams regular season
games.)

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BASKETBALL: HOW MANY FREE THROWS?

During the morning of your nearest professional (or college) basketball
teams game, take entries by phone with each caller guessing how many
free throws the team will make during the entire game.
Each caller wins a pair of tickets to the next home game.
Anyone guessing the exact amount wins season tickets.
Limit each caller to a number that hasnt already been chosen by another
contestant, to preclude multiple winners.

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BATHTUB RACE
This can be held on land (pushed by contestants, each tub holding one or
more passengers) or on water (with prizes going to the fastest rowers).

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BATHTUB REGATTA
This was an annual event for one San Francisco radio station, with tens of
thousands of spectators showing up to watch hundreds of bathtubs being
rowed down a waterway.
Awards can be given in the same manner that prizes are awarded to parade
floats.

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* BE KIND TO ANIMALS WEEK (May)

The Prize: A $50 gift certificate at a local pet supply store
To Win: Callers guess which pet will pop out of the Radio X Menagerie
dog, cat, parakeet, parrot (all prerecorded, of course). If they guess correctly,
they win the gift certificate.
Hint: People love to talk about their pets. Be sure to chat briefly with the
contestants about their own pets.

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BEACH PATROL
Most people like to think of themselves as being at the forefront of
contemporary fashion and taste, which is why many will listen to the radio
station that everyone else seems to be listening to.
If they go the beach and all the radios seem to be tuned to your station,
theyll start to wonder if maybe theyve been missing something by not
listening to you.
How do you get those radio dials set to your frequency?
Simply announce that the Radio X Beach Patrol will be at (Local) Beach this
weekend, randomly handing out $20 bills to people who have their radios
tuned to Radio X.

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BEAT THE BOMB

This requires a healthy budget, but itd make a terrific contest. (Contests with
this name have been done, but Im not aware of any that have been
structured just like this one.)
Your caller hears a computerized voice that lists individual dollar amounts,
each separated by five seconds of silence.
The amounts begin at $5 and increase in $5 increments to $50; then in $10
increments to $100; then $25 increments to $250; then $50 increments to
$500; then $100 increments to $1,000.
The five seconds of silence between each amount is the period when the caller
can choose to say Stop! and be awarded the amount of money last named.
The catch is that somewhere (except for the $1,000 prize) there is a mine
planted, and if the contestant reaches that mine a bomb will go off after the 5second silence and the caller with receive nothing.
(This is one of the few times I dont recommend a consolation prize. The
drama comes from the all-or-nothing situation.)
This would be a contest people would listen to even if they dont play; itll be
exciting to hear with the tension mounting after each dollar plateau is
reached.
Note: Make sure youve got the budget to do this one right; you cant
have a preponderance of $5 and $10 winners. Remember, though, that the
callers win only if they beat the bomb. Many will throw caution to the wind
and sacrifice a nice prize of, say, $100, in the hopes of winning more.

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BED RACE
Just what the name says.
Contestants push beds over a prescribed course, each bed carrying a
partner/passenger.
Do it for charity and youll get the local police to cooperate by blocking off a
major street for the race, which should generate plenty of local media
coverage.
Charge entry fees and get local merchants to donate attractive prizes (to
justify the entry fees, which go to charity) for the winners.

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BEER CAN SMASHING CONTEST

WKKN gave each contestant a mallet and two beer cans.
The winner was the person who with one smash could make the
flattest can.
You can set up different divisions according to age, sex, weight.

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THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE

Your contestant guesses which of several categories is that hours winning
category.
If she guesses correctly, she wins a prize within the category.
Examples: Categories might include Food, Sports, Transportation, Modern
Living, Communications, Clothing.
Sample Prizes: (These vary from small but good prizes to one or two super
prizes per category.)
Food: Free lunch at a hotdog stand, dinner for four at a fancy restaurant,
six-pack or case of soda, $100 worth of groceries, $100 (or tie the amount to
your frequency) of groceries per week for a year, four ounces of caviar.
Sports: Frisbees, tickets to local or regional professional or collegiate
sporting events, tennis rackets, racquetball equipment, bowling balls, jogging
outfits, ski equipment.
Transportation: Bicycles, unicycles, skateboards, roller blades, roller
skates, 15 gallons of gas, one years pass on a local mass transit system, one
days limousine service complete with chauffeur, motorcycles, and if you
can afford it a grand prize of an automobile (you might also feature a
lesser prize of a good but less expensive used car).
Modern Living: The latest home entertainment devices, telephones,

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music players, computerized gadgets, etc.

Communications: Personal phone bill paid for a year or a month ($100
per month limit), personal telephone equipment (e.g., Mickey Mouse phone),
radio, TV, walkie-talkie set, cell phone, digital assistant, personalized stationery
& envelopes, answering machine or voice mail.
Clothing: Various sized gift certificates at clothing stores, station t-shirts,
gift certificate at shoe store, childrens gift certificate, certificate good for a
single shirt or pair of pants.
Hint: To add to the fun and to the risk, throw in a few (not too many)
clunkers for each category.

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BINGO: RADIO BINGO

Variations of this have been done for decades.
WROV printed and distributed (at advertiser locations) bingo cards with 16
squares.
The four vertical columns were identified by the four letters in the stations
call letters.
The contestants labelled the four rows with each of the last four digits of their
telephone numbers.
Each hour the jock would call out a letter/number combination, e.g., W-3,
R-6, etc.
The first listener to phone in with a card that has four boxes in a row marked
on the card would win.
The jock would call the listener back at the phone number on the card, to
verify that the contestant indeed did have the last four digits he used on that
card.
As an alternative, you can offer the cards for download on your website
perhaps with a merchant coupon or offer embedded in it.
Hint: Be sure to identify each game to avoid confusion e.g., The next
combination in KKEDs Bingo Game #6 is....

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BINGO: SUPERSTARS BINGO

Heres a clever bingo adaptation used by KEWI.
They came out with a bingo card consisting of 25 squares, each containing
the name of a popular recording artist. Each cards configuration was
different.
Contestants covered the artists name each time his/her song was played.
The first person to cover a column, row, or diagonal called the station and
became a winner.
(Naturally, youll need to have the winner bring in the card for verification.)
A cash prize should be offered to justify both the diligent listening required to
win and the extra effort of bringing the winning card to the station.
This should be excellent for quarter-hour maintenance during ratings periods.

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BINGO NIGHT
This was used by KJQY, and its a new twist on an old and simple promotion
the mystery song.
Four times a day, it was announced that the Mystery Song was about to
be played.
Listeners were told to mail in their names & addresses along with the name
of the Mystery Song.
(Obviously, you can have people enter online but youd need to set up a
mechanism to prevent multiple entry fraud.)
Each correct entry became eligible for the daily drawing of 104 winners,
which then were put on a mailing list and notified that theyd been selected.
These winners won the right to compete at Bingo Night, a huge gathering
attended by most of the station staff.
KJQY pulled over 1,000 people to a single Bingo Night, but you might want
to limit it to, say, 500.
Trade out some great prizes (automobile, microwave ovens, wide-screen TVs,
iPods, vacations) and throw in a couple of large cash prizes, too.
And make sure everyone attending leaves with something a t-shirt, coffee
mug, etc.

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BIRTHDAY GAME
Listeners send in postcards listing their name, address, phone number and
birth date.
Each hour, the jock spins two wheels. One wheel contains the 12 months, the
other contains the numbers 1 through 31.
Together, the wheels come up with a birth date for that hour.
When a birth date is chosen say, for example, January 10 the jock goes
to the container that holds all of the entries with January 10 birthdays and
withdraws one.
The station immediately awards a cash prize to that person and doubles the
prize if the person calls the station within the next 30 minutes.
Note: In order to insure that the months & days truly are randomly
selected, you should not use any kind of prerecorded device. Use an actual
wheel, a keno-type ball hopper, or a computerized random number generator.
If you use some random method in advance and then record the results prior
to airing the contest, you must announce the fact that the winning dates have
been pre-selected.

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BLACKJACK: COMPUTER BLACKJACK

KQDI tied in with Apple Computer and called it Apple Jack.
The contest featured production based on the Apple computer program for
blackjack. Contestants who were dealt a hand of 17 to 20 received gift
certificates from sponsoring businesses.
Sponsors rotated with each game.
A score of 21 won the jackpot, which grew each time a contestant failed to
reach 21.
Approximately half the contestants won either a gift certificate or a cash
jackpot, but that left enough busts to maintain a sense of tension.

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BLACKJACK: RADIO BLACKJACK

The title is self-explanatory, and there are many variations possible.
The most likely would be to pre-record (with a computerized voice) card
values and have them dealt to the jock and to the contestant.
The jock must draw to any 17 (must hit a 16 or a soft 17 -- a total of 17
that includes an Ace being counted as 1).
The contestant can stand or draw where she wishes.
If the contestant goes over 21, she loses without the jock having to complete
his own hand.

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* BLAME SOMEONE ELSE DAY

Award prizes for people calling in with alibis.
All they have to do is blame someone or something for their own misdeed or
mistakes.
Example: The reason I was late for work is my calendar is wrong.

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BLOCK PARTY: WIN A BLOCK PARTY

The winning entry can be decided by a drawing or, even better, by the
best performance in some public spirited adventure (e.g., the block that turns
in the most aluminum cans for recycling, with profits going to a camp for
handicapped children).
You send the stations most popular personality out to the winning block one
Saturday afternoon for a live remove broadcast and he brings along tons
of free food and beverages.

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BOAT: THE RADIO X LOVE BOAT

Heres an intriguing switch on your basic cruise prize. Offer two cruises.
One ship is for singles only; the other is for marrieds only.
Qualify married callers by asking trivia questions about famous married
partners, wedding trivia, anniversary trivia.
Qualify singles by having contestants identify famous eligible bachelors/
bachelorettes of the past & present.

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* BOSS: NATIONAL BOSS DAY

Promote this the week before, having listeners enter their name, address,
business phone, and the name & title of their boss.
During the contest day, draw one or more names per hour.
Each person whose name is announced has X-number of minutes to call in,
thereby winning a prize for the boss and a prize for the contestant.

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BUMPER STICKERS WITH A TWIST

WQIC gave away station bumper stickers with their call letters on top and no
printing on the bottom.
Everyone who had a bumper sticker could bring it to the station and have
their names applied in letters that matched the call letters on the
bottom half.
You can bet people proudly displayed those stickers.

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CALL LETTERS: THE MISSING CALL LETTER

This ones been done a few times over the years.
The idea is that some dastardly demon has stolen the W or K (or C if
youre in Canada, or your first number if youre Down Under), and clues are
given to help some lucky listener locate it and win some really big prize.
The idea is to pick out a W somewhere in the area (perhaps as part of a
banks big building sign, for example) and give clues that gradually focus in
on it.
Meanwhile, of course, you have to edit the W from all your jingles and
liners and have your personalities refrain from using the first letter of your
call letters except, of course, for legal I.D.s.
A good tongue-in-cheek promotion.

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CANNED GOODS:
ANOTHER RADIO X (PITTSBURGH) CAN CONCERT
Fill in your station name and city.
The station sponsors a concert or a series of concerts.
Book acts that normally would command a $10 to $20 admission, and charge
that amount per person unless the person brings with him/her a can of
food to donate at the door, in which case admission costs only a dollar.
Naturally, the canned goods go to an appropriate charity.

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CARS: THE AUTOGRAPHMOBILE

Your station sends its van around town all summer, inviting listeners to sign
their names somewhere on the vehicle.
It makes a fun sight and a silly promotion.
But then, after the car is covered with signatures, you announce a contest in
which the person coming closest to guessing the exact number of signatures
wins the van.

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CARS: A FREE RIDE FROM RADIO X

KRSPs Prize Cruiser pulled over cars bearing station bumper stickers and
awarded the driver the exact amount of his or her monthly car payment.
If the car already was paid for in full, the driver received an amount equal to
his age plus the year of the car with the four digits of the year
representing a four-digit dollar amount, with decimal point.
Example: A 25-year old driving a 2004 auto would receive $25 + $20.04
for a total of $45.04.

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CARS: GUESS THE MILEAGE, WIN THE CAR

This one is pretty self-explanatory.
The station jocks drive the flashy new car around town for a month.
For the first two or three weeks, regular updates are given on the latest
mileage.
Postcard entries are accepted during the final week, and the guess closest to
the actual final mileage wins the car.
Meanwhile, the car is driven all over town to various sponsor locations for
contestants to gaze upon wishfully.
And non-listeners seeing the car might be motivated to listen to your station
(or visit your website) for rules and mileage update hints.

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CARS: MYSTERY CAR

WFFG gave away a cash prize to the contestant who correctly identified the
Mystery Car by year, make, and model.
The car was displayed at various sponsor locations.
The Catch: Before being put on display, the car was crushed and
compressed into an unidentifiable hunk of metal.

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CARS: SPEEDOMETER TESTING STATION

Set this up on successive weekends at various locations around town,
working with local police.
The street is blocked off and citizens can drive at a steady speed while being
checked by police radar.

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CASH FLASHER
This is basically your old on-the-street money giveaway, with a catchy twist.
WCPI called its representative a Cash Flasher, because when he found his
winners (by asking people on the street what radio station they listen to and
receiving the proper response), he opened his overcoat flasher style and
displayed six packs of money.
Each had a dollar bill on top, and the winner was allowed to choose one pack.
Each pack, however, contained an amount of money different from each of
the other five.

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CASH HOURS
A clever idea (and somewhat cynical manipulation of listeners habits during
ratings sweeps) was used at K59 in Honolulu.
At a certain time in a given hour, listeners were told to start counting the
number of times the stations call letters were said during the next 60
minutes.
When the hour was up, the first caller with the correct answer won a hundred
bucks.
The idea is attractive for several reasons:
1. Its easy to enter.
2. Its easy to win (i.e., you dont have to be particularly smart or
knowledgeable).
3. An attractive prize is offered frequently.
4. Its a sure way to keep your audience through four consecutive quarterhours.
Warning: Youd better set up some fail-safe method of ensuring a
correction station count of call letters, perhaps going as far as having
someone monitor the jock and keep a separate tally while the jocks keep one
of their own.

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CHRISTMAS: CHRISTMAS AT HOME

Prize: Your station flies the winners family to your city for the holidays.

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CHRISTMAS PRIZES
Christmas trees
Station-personalized Christmas stockings
Trip to the North Pole
Christmas tree ornaments designed by local artists

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CHRISTMAS SPIRIT AWARDS

You can do this very cheaply and please many members of your community.
Have listeners submit nominations for local citizens who deserve to be
publicly commended for keeping the holiday spirit alive through their acts
and deeds.
Examples of Nominees: Dedicated schoolteachers, charity volunteers, Big
Brothers/Sisters, etc.
Have all entrants include their names & phone numbers and the names &
phone numbers of the nominees. Youll want to have a staff member verify
(e.g., by calling the employer or organization the nominee reportedly serves)
each nominee to weed out any sucker entries i.e., nominees who in
reality sell drugs, are in prison, etc.
Award each of them, by mail, a fancy certificate prominently featuring three
things:
1. Your station name
2. The winners name
3. The winners good deed.
Make them fancy enough, and you can be sure theyll be prominently
displayed on walls throughout your town for years to come. Oh, and be sure
to announce the winners through periodic and brief on-air roll calls.

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CHRISTMAS SPONSOR PROMOTION

The basic premise for this promotion was used by WRAR. Its a good way to
get an extra large holiday schedule from a big local retailer.
Run (paid) spots for the merchant, asking listeners to write in with their own
commercial scripts, created around the theme of A (Johnson Brothers)
Christmas.
Spots should convey the message that holidays are made merrier with gifts
from Johnson Brothers.
Instruct entrants to include the name and sponsor location in each spot
entered.
Guarantee at least three winners (with the prize being, say, a $500 in-store
gift certificate) and select more than your minimum if there are enough
deserving entrants.
Winning spots are recorded by the radio station and voiced by the writer,
if the writer sounds good enough and entered into regular spot rotation.
Or you can have entrants submit their own, finished mp3 versions.
Note: Make sure your rules clearly state that winning entries will be aired
on Radio X. Do not say theyll also be voiced by the winner; leave yourself
the option to choose without disappointing or insulting the winners by saying
theyre not good enough to do the voicing.

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CHRISTMAS SWAP SHOP

This is simply an old-fashioned on-air swap shop, with the gimmick being that
listeners can call in to sell or trade holiday gifts theyre not too thrilled about
having received.

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CHRISTMAS: THE RADIO X CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTS

Remember the TV game show, Concentration? Thats the game in which
there are rows of boxes, and contestants score points by matching two boxes.
Thats the idea here, only were using 100 Christmas tree lights (in our
imaginations, that is). The 100 lights represent 50 pairs of prizes, large &
small but no clunkers.
Each telephone contestant gets to choose two lights, by number. If the two
match, the caller wins that prize.
Example:
CONTESTANT: Ill try Number 7 and Number 33.
JOCK: Okay, lets see if those lights match. First, Number 7.
RECORDED VOICE: Light Number 7: A Sony PlayStation.
JOCK: Wow, what a prize! If Light Number 33 matches, youve won
yourself a new PlayStation. Good luck!
RECORDED VOICE: Light Number 33: A Minolta digital camera.
JOCK: Gee, (CONTESTANT), Im sorry you didnt win. But try again,
because well be giving another lucky listener a shot at the 100 Lights of
Christmas very soon....

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CHRISTMAS WISHES
During the week prior to Christmas Day, have listeners call in to record their
Christmas wishes (one per caller), along with their name, address and
telephone number.
Play them back during the week prior to Christmas, backing each one with
Christmas music.
Callers have X-number of minutes to call in after hearing their own wishes
replayed on-the-air.
Suggested Prizes: Cameras to record their holiday celebrations

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CHRISTMAS: THE AUTOMATIC SANTA

The winner of your contest gets to make an undetermined $ withdrawal from
a local banks automatic teller.
The amount is based on how many withdrawals the winner can accomplish
within, say, a five-minute period.
Each individual withdrawal will be limited to a specified amount, probably
keyed to your station frequency $5.70, $57.00, etc.
You should be able to figure out the maximum cost to your station by
determining the minimum length of time it takes to complete a transaction.

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CHRISTMAS: A CHILDRENS CHRISTMAS

Record the voices of local disadvantaged children, saying what they would
like to receive for Christmas.
Air the spots individually, and invite listeners to call in and donate the item in
question.
Naturally, you wont identify the children by name, and there wont be any
kind of contest tie-in but you will acknowledge the generous person or
business who contributes the donation.
Arrange in advance to donate all excess gifts (and there should be quite a
few) to a local charity.

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CHRISTMAS: A FAMILY CHRISTMAS

KIKX allotted one on-air hour per personality on Christmas Eve.
Each jock had his or her family there in the studio, and they spent the hour
talking about their favorite holiday memories, playing their favorite holiday
songs, and relating what they hoped the new year would bring.
This aired from 7PM until midnight and was rebroadcast from midnight until
5AM.

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CHRISTMAS: MERRY CHRISTMAS FOR CASH

This one is simple but effective.
Go around town recording people-on-the-street saying Merry Christmas or
Happy New Year.
Announce your locations in advance, and really cover the city for a week or
so in advance.
Carefully note the name & number of each audio greeting.
Then the following week play them back, once per quarter-hour.
When people recognize themselves on-the-air, they have X-number of
minutes to call the station to win, say, $100.

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CIRCUS
This is one of the finest oldies but goodies, especially when its handled in a
very low-key manner.
Station personalities escort a group of blind children (theres bound to be a
school for the blind in your area) to a local performance of the circus, getting
seats for them at ringside.
Each jock sits with perhaps five kids, describing in detail the events as they
unfold.
The kids will respond both to the descriptions and to the crowds reactions to
the circus, and they can follow the proceedings with the braille programs you
had specially printed for them.
If you do this one right, when youre finished youll have a hard time going
back to cash calls and wet t-shirt contests.
Note: If youre really smart, you wont blast it out at every opportunity,
telling your audience how wonderful you are to be so nice to the kids. In fact,
dont even mention it on-the-air by way of promotion.
(Dont ask parents to enter their kids to go with the jocks, because youll end
up causing a lot of kids to be terribly disappointed when their names arent
chosen.)
Theres nothing wrong with having the circus acknowledge your presence

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during or just before the performance especially because the children

themselves will be thrilled to hear the circus publicly welcome the children
from the ( ) School for the Blind, along with their own personal ringside
announcers from Radio X.
And if they dont overdo it, an honest reference by the jocks to the event the
day after wouldnt be in bad taste.

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CIRCUS: PLAY-BY-PLAY
This is basically the promotion described on the previous page, with a twist.
WKIX provided a running commentary for 30 blind children who attended
the circus in their area.
The twist lies in the fact that the commentary was delivered through
individual headphones worn by the students.

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COCONUTS: CREATIVE COCONUT CONTEST

Heres an off-the-wall way to give away a Hawaiian vacation, used by
KAKE.
Fifty finalists appeared at a shopping mall.
Each was given a coconut, and the winner was chosen on the basis of who
came up with the most creative coconut design.
Contestants were allowed to use knives, drills and paint.
Hint: To avoid claims of bias, round up some celebrity judges for this one.

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COLUMBUS DAY (October)

The Prize: A cruise in the waters where Columbus reached the New World
Bahamas, Jamaica, etc.
Another Prize: A sailboat.
Another Prize: A trip to the Columbus of the winners choice: Columbus,
Ohio; Columbus, Georgia; etc.

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COMPLETE THE SONG

Your jock reads part of a song lyric, and the call-in contestant has to complete
the line.
Example:
JOCK: When youre down and troubled...
CONTESTANT: ...and you need a helping hand. (From Youve Got A
Friend)
Of course, youll choose songs that are well-known to your audience.
But dont leave the title as the mystery line; dont make it too easy.
And dont name the song before having the contestant try to complete the
line.
Hint: Follow up on the call by playing the song.

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COMPUTER: THE MUSIC COMPUTER

Youve seen those arcade-type computer quiz machines:
Put in a quarter and take a five-question test. Get them all right and youre
proclaimed a genius and you get to play again.
WZZQ had a machine specially programmed with rock & roll questions and
stationed it at a sponsor location.
Obviously, this would work for any music format.

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COMPUTER: THE PRIZE COMPUTER

Your on-air computerized voice names a series of prizes, large and small, with
each prize separated by three seconds of silence.
The contestant decides when to stop the computer.
After the contestant says stop, the prize awarded is the very next prize
announced by the computer.

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CONCERT HALL SEATING GUIDE

Heres a promotional idea that can be updated annually.
Publish a little booklet featuring complete seating charts of every local concert
hall, arena, stadium, etc., in your area.
The more detail you can include (individual seat numbers, location, access,
prices of parking, etc.), the better.
It should be easy to sell enough print advertising within the booklet to entirely
pay for its publication.
With your call letters & logo prominently displayed on the cover and
throughout the booklet, you can be sure your station will continually be
reinforced as people refer to the booklet throughout the year.
Bonus Tip: Tag spots for local concerts by saying, Remember, if youd
like to see exactly where your seat is before you buy your ticket, pick up a
copy of the RADIO X CONCERT GUIDE at the following locations....
You can include these promos in the cost to the sponsors who purchase print
ads and feature those sponsor locations for people to pick up their guides.

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COOKBOOK: RADIO XS (CITY) COOKBOOK

Solicit family recipes from your listeners.
Have a panel of experts (or some well-known gourmet) select the best
recipes, and put them all in a book.
Tie in with your local Chamber of Commerce, which will be responsible for
seeing to it that stores all over town sell the book at a reasonable price (e.g.,
$2.95).
Your station (and the Chamber of Commerce, if you can swing it) pays for
the printing, and all proceeds go to a local charity.
Featured recipes include the names of the persons who contribute them,
along with any history of each recipe (e.g., My great grandmother
learned this from an Army chef back in 1903....).

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COOKING CARNIVAL
KWON called theirs the Cooking Classic.
The station solicited listeners recipes, the best of which were compiled in a
station cookbook.
Sponsorships were sold for the Cooking Classic itself a big event at a local
fairground.
Sponsors were included in the promo spots and got booth space during the
event.
Your sponsors dont have to be related to cooking; anything related to the
home fits right in.
Everyone who comes to the event gets a free copy of the cookbook, which
includes sponsors credits.
Festivities are climaxed by a cooking demonstration by an expert gourmet
chef, making some of the recipes from the book.
Hint: Youll need lots of folding chairs for people to view the demonstration
from, plus appropriate demonstration kitchen equipment with good lighting,
overhead mirrors, etc. Your chef should be able to tell you what youll need.

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COOK-OFF: LOCAL FOOD SPECIALTY COOK-OFF

Every area has at least one ethnic cooking specialty.
In Fresno, California, its Armenian food. In San Francisco, it might be
Mandarin. In parts of Pennsylvania its German, while in Texas it might be
chili. You get the idea.
Anyway, you figure out a way to qualify contestants (drawing, rasing the
most donations for charity, etc.) and gather them all at a local restaurant that
specializes in that kind of food.
Qualify as many contestants as the place can handle, and invite listeners to
come watch and taste.
A panel of experts judges the entries.
The experts might be a station personality, the local mayor, and the owner of
the restaurant.
After the judging, samples are passed around to the spectators.
Suggested First Prize: A kitchen-full of appliances: refrigerator, freezer,
microwave oven, small appliances.
Second Prize: Microwave oven.
Third Prize: Assortment of small appliances like toasters, blenders, etc.

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COUNT THE MINUTES

If your station severely limits the number & frequency of commercials,
emphasize that fact by having listeners count the number of minutes that
elapse between the last commercial and the next one.
Promote it heavily on-air so everyone knows the rules.
At pre-selected times, follow the last spot aired with an announcement to the
effect of:
You just have just heard Radio Xs Last Commercial. Count the number
of minutes that pass until our Next One and enjoy your favorite Radio X
music without interruption. As soon as you hear our Next Commercial, stop
counting and start dialing. The first person to call us at 555-5555 with the
correct number of minutes that elapsed between our Last Commercial and
our Next Commercial will win $100 cash. The clock starts now.
A bit wordy, but with the proper dramatic inflection itll work well.
Hint: Give the official time at the start and finish (that is, after saying the
clock starts now and then before going into the Next Commercial.

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COUNT THE SONGS

This one is simply, direct, and effective.
At the top of each hour, listeners begin counting the number of songs played
in that hour.
During the next hour, calls are taken with the first caller with the correct
answer being paid $5 or $10 per song.
This one is excellent for quarter-hour maintenance.

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COUNT THE SONGS (Alternate Version)

This essentially is the same contest as the previous one, only this time prizes
arent awarded every hour.
A flat cash prize several hundred dollars, at least is awarded for the
correct numbered caller who calls in with the exact number of songs played
since a given starting point over a period of time anywhere from 1.5 to
three hours.

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CRAB RACES
Or turtle races. Or frog jumps. Or gerbil races.
All jocks have their own entries, which they coach.
This can be the highlight of a station picnic, half-time entertainment, etc.
Note: This is a fun promotion, as long as you dont choose an animal that
shouldnt be subjected to such an event, e.g., chickens scurrying fearfully
about make for a pathetic sight.

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CROSSWORD PUZZLE
Crossword puzzles numbered but blank, and without clues are
distributed at sponsor locations and/or downloaded for free off your website
but with sponsor ads on the puzzle cards.
During the period of a week, the jocks announce clues for each of the specific
puzzle numbers.
Example: 12 Across: Comedian who had a hit TV show with his name on
it. (Answer: Seinfeld)
The first person to submit a correctly completed puzzle wins a large cash
prize.
(Your station can decide the methods of submission: fax...postal mail....e-mail,
etc.)
If more than one correct entry is received the same day, the winner is
selected via a drawing.
This one is excellent for quarter-hour maintenance.

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DAY OFF WITH PAY

This one pretty much is self-explanatory.
A drawing is held weekly or monthly to select someone wholl be allowed to
take a day off from work, with the station paying the persons salary for the
day (and smoothing it over with the winners employer, of course).

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DIAMOND MINE
KWYZ put a box filled with four tons of sand on the bed of a truck.
Scattered throughout all that sand were 40 diamonds, worth $150 to $175
each.
Contestants were given three minutes each one person at a time to
search through the sand for a diamond (limit one per person).
KWYZ gave contestants a sifter to use, but instead you might choose to have
them search by hand.
The promotion made money for the station by being sold to various sponsor
locations (shopping malls, car dealerships, etc.), with paid spots announcing
where the diamond mine would be.
A very exciting, attention-getting promotion.

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DINNER IN A PARKING LOT

KFMB awarded a dinner in the parking lot of a 7-11 store, completely
catered with selections from the 7-11 menu (i.e., Hot To Go sandwiches,
soft drinks, etc.).
The winner was driven to the parking lot in a limousine.
Live coverage of the dinner with a special report on the menu as selected
by the winners should prove to be lots of fun.

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DIRECT MAILING OF PERSONALIZED CHECKS

Each household receives four separate, non-negotiable checks made out by
the name to the head(s) of the household.
When KSSK ran this promotion, the four checks were in amounts of $50,
$500, $1,000 and $5,000.
Serial numbers are read on-the-air, and winners calling in with the correct
serial numbers are verified on the phone by having them identify the person
to whom the check is made out.
Obviously, everything will need to be cross-referenced on a computer, and
the personalized mass mailing will help drive up the cost of this promotion.
But the response should be tremendous.

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DIRECT MAILING OF SWEEPSTAKES NUMBERS

Direct mail can be an effective way of reaching large numbers of your target
audience.
Typically, each household receives a sweepstakes number, along with an
exciting sales pitch listing the prizes up for grabs and urging them to listen.
Each household gets a different number, and numbers are read on-the-air
once or more each hour.
The person who has the number thats read on-air calls in within a specified
time limit to win.
Obviously, youll need to have each winner prove possession of the winning
number.
Some stations have allowed small prize winners to come to the station within
the next week to verify a winning number, while sending station personnel
out to the locations of big winners (so the big prizes arent tied up for days,
only to have it turn out theyve got a bogus winner).

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DOLLARS: THE SUPER DOLLAR

Each Thursday during the run of this promotion, WMYK would read one
serial number per hour of a dollar bill circulating in their listening area.
(Presumably the station had managed to put a number of such bills into
circulation anonymously some time previous to the day in question.)
Any listener who happened to have that dollar bill could call in within the
specified time period and win $25,000.
The prize was doubled ($50,000) if the caller also had one of the stations
listener/member cards.
Finally, any $50,000 winner also received an all-expense paid trip to Las
Vegas to gamble away some of the prize money.
Note: Obviously, you can use this basic idea for smaller amounts, if your
market cant sustain such a large cash prize. $5,000 probably will garner
almost as much rapt listener attention.

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DOUBLE OR NOTHING
The odds against correctly predicting nine consecutive 50/50 events are 512
to 1.
A 50/50 event is a coin flip, odd or even digit, black or white, up or down,
etc.
The radio station spins one of two wheels (at the contestants choice), and the
contestant picks either A or B on the wheel.
The wheel lands on A or B; if the contestant predicted A and wheel lands
on A, the contestant win $5.
The contestant is given the choice of keeping the $5 or going for double or
nothing.
If she wins again, the prize is $10; a loss nets the contestant zero dollars.
After each win, the contestant again is given the choice of double or nothing.
The maximum win is nine in a row; nine consecutive wins nets the contestant
$2,560.
If every contestant goes for broke each time, you can expect to give away
$2,560 once out of every 512 times (on average).
But how many will stop at, say, $1,280? Or at $640?

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DRAG RACE
Your station jocks race against each other in a special event at the local track.
Meanwhile, the station gives away passes to the races as prizes or sets up a
charity tie-in whereby half the proceeds of all tickets sold go to charity.
Once a winner emerges from your staff, you can continue the idea by
challenging other local personalities, again for charity.
You might want to include the local hotshot newspaper columnist and invite a
newscaster from each local TV station to ensure lots of coverage before and
after the event.

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DRAG RACE: IN DRAG

Your male station jocks run a race against each other.
At a local racetrack.
In drag wearing womens clothing: Evening gown, high heels, etc.

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DIET: RADIO X DROPS A TON

WBRD held a month-long promotion in which all overweight station
employees went on diets.
The listener who guessed the total weight loss or came closest won a
bunch of prizes, most of which were related in some way to weight or weight
loss: resort vacation (where they can swim & golf & play tennis for exercise),
health spa membership, fancy home scales, etc.
Extra: As a side bet, you can have listeners guess which person will lose the
most weight (either in pounds or in percentage of total body weight) and
how much. (In that case, youll want to offer statistics for each employee.)
Hint: All during the month, offer sensible, well-researched tips for dieters,
encouraging listeners to join you in shedding unwanted pounds.
You might even see if your citys mayor wants to take part.

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DREAM MACHINE
Listeners submit their most unusual dreams, which then are analyzed by a
dream expert (or by a jock who consults a dream interpretation book).
Winning dreams are awarded mattress & box springs.

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THE EASIEST CONTEST IN THE WORLD

This is a basic quarter-hour maintenance, audience recycling gimmick
thats been done by a few stations.
To win, the caller must know both the question and the answer both of
which are aired on the station.
The answer might be giving during the morning show, while the question is
given during mid-days.
Both are clearly identified, so its just a matter of sticking to the radio until
theyre given and then scrambling for the phone when the jock asks for the
question & answer.
To make this worth the listeners while, youve got to give away something
solid probably a $500 cash prize.

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EASTER: BLIND CHILDRENS EASTER EGG HUNT

Heres a great idea from KVOC.
They fitted electronic chirping devices (which your local society for the
blind probably can lend you) into plastic eggs (the kind that pantyhose or
Silly Putty comes in), which were spread over an area marked off for the
hunt.

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EASTER BUNNIES
The Prize: Huge chocolate bunnies, traded out with and picked up by the
winners at the sponsors location.
But remember, these need to be huge to be worth the winners while.

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EASTER EGG FIGHT

The object of this egg fight is not to throw it but to tap it against your
opponents own hardboiled egg.
Contestants are provided eggs, then mingle amongst themselves (with judges
mingling, too, to ensure fair play), tapping one egg against another.
The object is to determine whose hardboiled egg is hardest.
Of each pair of tapped eggs, the one that cracks drops out while the
victorious, non-cracked egg remains to meet a new challenger.
To guard against trickery, the winning egg is cracked open and eaten by the
winner & the judges, and the judges examine the shell to make sure no
cement dust (for example) was added.
Hint: To avoid suspicions about the winning egg, all eggs are provided &
boiled by or under the supervision of station personnel.
Hint: To make sure people dont sneak in their own eggs, paint a code
number on each egg.

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EASTER EGG HUNT IN A SHOPPING MALL

You shouldnt have any trouble selling sponsorship in this promotion used by
WRCQ.
They took over the mall from the morning hours before the mall normally
opened.
(Malls typically open at 10AM; you could do it at 8AM Saturday) and hid
thousands of eggs up & down the corridors.
Mix chocolate eggs with special ones redeemable for toys, ice cream, etc., at
mall merchants.
WRCQ had a special section for very little children probably five and
under in which parents could help.
The rest of the mall was set aside for kids 12 and younger.
Why should this be so easy to sell?
When 10AM rolls around, the mall already will be filled with people and if
many of them have eggs to redeem for prizes in the stores, in-store traffic will
be tremendous.

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EASTER OMELETTES
If theres a local restaurant that specializes in omelettes or just in great
breakfasts give away Easter Egg Omelettes For Two at the restaurant,
redeemable any time during Easter week.

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EGG DROP
Contestants attempt to catch raw eggs dropped from the top of a local
building without, of course, allowing the eggs to break.
They can use whatever they wish to help catch the eggs, as long as you
approve it first.
(Your printed rules will need to explain what types of equipment will not be
allowed.)
The winner is the person who catches the most unbroken eggs.
If all the eggs break, the cash prize is split among the contestants...or
drawings are held to split it up among three winners in three different
amounts.
Hint: Protect your station by protecting all participants with protective head
gear and face gear.

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EGG DROP #2
Unlike the previous promotion, in which a limited number of contestants vies
to see who can catch the most eggs, in this one you get a huge crowd to
show up with each member of the crowd getting one chance to catch an
egg.
Catching an egg intact wins, say, five CDs or a $20 gift certificate or a $20
bill.
Plus, certain eggs will be marked for special cash awards of say, $100 to
$500 if they remain intact.
Inasmuch as this event is sure to attract lots of media coverage, it shouldnt
be at all hard to tie this in with a local shopping mall and have them pick up
all the costs in exchange for the publicity and the spectators.
Hint: Again, protect yourself legally. Require all entrants to wear helmets,
gloves, and padded coats. And have them all sign liability release forms.

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EGG FRYING CONTEST

It was so hot you couldve friend an egg on the sidewalk.
Why not validate your next heat wave with a contest to prove it?
Contestants are allowed to use magnifying glasses, mirrors, anything short of
a primary heat source (e.g., flame, heater, etc.) as long as the egg touches
nothing but the sidewalk.
The person with the fastest-cooking eggs wins.
This should garner lots of newspaper and TV coverage.

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ELECTIONS: POLITICAL PROGNOSTICATOR

The week before the election, take entries guessing who will win the big race
and by how many votes.
The closest guess wins.
Suggested Prize: A trip to Washington, D.C., to meet the winner (or the
state capital, if appropriate), tour Congress, etc.

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ELECTIONS: POST-ELECTION ADVERTISING CLEAN-UP

After a local election, offer listeners 25 cents for every political sign they
bring into the station within a specified time period (a couple of days).
The idea is to rid the area of what most people consider to be an eyesore: all
those Vote for Mr. Whosis signs plastered on telephone poles, walls, trees,
etc.
Alternative Prize: Offer movie passes, CDs, etc., for a minimum number of
posters (e.g., two movie passes for ten posters).

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ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE
Publish a handy, pocket-sized guide listing phone numbers, addresses and
websites for local movie theaters, legitimate theaters, concert halls, sporting
parks & arenas, bowling alleys, skating rinks, etc.
Sell advertising (either to generic clients or to entertainment-oriented clients)
to pay for the printing and possibly to provide a modest profit and give
the guides away at public appearances, distribute via retail outlets, etc.

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EXPERTS: THE RADIO X PANEL OF EXPERTS

Listeners are invited to join your panel of experts by being the right caller, at
which time theyre given without prior notice a particular subject.
Their task then is to talk about that subject for a specific length of time
without pausing: no ums, uhs, etc.
Dont judge for content.
As long as they keep talking about something having to do with the subject,
they win.
Youre not looking for losers.
All winners get a certificate proclaiming them as A Member of Radio Xs
Panel of Experts, along with two free meals at a local restaurant.

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FAMOUS FACES
During the three weeks that KNIX ran this promotion, all listeners who
thought they resembled famous people were urged to submit a photo to
prove it.
Finalists, as selected by station personnel, were invited to an evening at a local
nightclub, where local media personalities served on the panel that chose
three winners.
Prizes were $500, $250, and $100...plus a trip to Hollywood for each.

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FATHERS DAY: FATHERS ON-THE-AIR

Station hosts share their airshifts with their own fathers.
The fathers get to pick their own music (or field their own talk topics),
reminisce about the jocks childhoods, answer personal questions about
their DJ children by taking on-air phone calls from listeners.
Hint: Promote the event a few days in advance with recorded teasers from
the jocks fathers:
Hi, Im Mike Jock. Did you ever wonder what Wild Willy Jock was like as
a kid? Well, Ill tell you all about it Friday at 3PM. Im Willys dad
and Ill be running things during his show this Friday!

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FATHERS DAY: NAME THAT DAD

Listeners hear a recording of a man, telling all about what his son/daughter
was like as a child.
To win the contestant must correctly guess which jocks father it is.

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FATHERS DAY: WIVES ON-THE-AIR

This is another idea that never gets old, and it applies to all formats.
On the Friday before Fathers Day, the male jocks wives help them celebrate
by coming in and doing most of the show for them, with the male jocks there
just to help out when needed.
(For your female jocks, see this same idea listed under Mothers Day.)

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FIFTY PER CENT OFF FAIR

Heres a great idea brought to life by WKIX.
They rounded up a diverse group of sponsors to sell their merchandise in a
single location, with all goods sold at 50% off the regular retail price.
The eight-hour event was heavily promoted with spots purchased by the
participating merchants.
Hint: Promote the event as Radio Xs way of fighting inflation.
Estimate the total retail value of all merchandise that will be for sale, and
feature that figure in your promos (e.g., over half a million dollars worth
of merchandise, all at 50% off the regular price Saturday from 10AM
til 6PM only!)

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FISHING: THE $25,000 FISH

Your choice as to how to select contestants, but once youve got em you
load them on chartered boats to fish a local lake for, say, 2 hours at a time.
Youve seeded the lake with specially banded or marked fish, worth (for
example) $25,000, $10,000, $5,000 and (several) $1,000.
Anyone who catches the right fish wins the cash but only if the fish is
caught during the specified time period.
To maintain some of the interest after the day is over, however, offer a $50
reward for each of the remaining specially marked fish, whenever theyre
brought in.
Put those belated winners on-the-air, too.

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FISHING TOURNAMENT
If youre in a lake area with lots of avid fishermen, tie in with a local sporting
goods store to sponsor an area-wide fishing tournament.
Entry fees go to make up the cash awards for the first fish caught, largest
fish, etc.
Largest prize might be a $500 gift certificate from the store, with other prizes
being cash awards of $50 to $100.

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FM MEANS FREE MILES

FM102 coined that phrase, with daily drawings awarding chauffeur-driven
limousines to and from work (or school) to the winners for a day.
You can expand this idea specifically to include secretaries (the limo drives the
winner and her co-workers to lunch at some fancy restaurant, waits while
they dine, and returns them to work) or to housewives (the limo drives them
to the supermarket and the chauffeur pushes the grocery cart inside the
store).
Hint: For maximum effect, use the longest, sleekest, limousine in town.

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FOOTBALL: GRUDGE BETS

This has been done by many air personalities with great success.
Simply call a counterpart at a radio station in the city where your home team
is going to be playing and make some outrageous bet with him/her on the
outcome of the game.
Standard bet is for the loser to fly to the winners city and do the show for a
day.
Others involve the loser marching down Main Street in the winners town,
bearing some humiliating sign making reference to the loss.
Still others involve regional stakes, e.g., a jock in Maine might bet a crate of
live Maine lobsters against a Texans vat of fresh Texas chili.

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FOOTBALL HANDICAPPER
Once a week, a lucky listener gets to match wits with your stations expert
handicapper in picking the weeks winners in pro or college football.
The guest expert is chosen by some type of contest, probably a drawing.
Prizes to the finalists might be hand-held electronic football games.
Finalists qualify either by random phone selection or by answering some
football-related trivia question.
Then a weeks end drawing is held to determine the winner, who appears live
in the studio the following Wednesday (in time for Thursday through Sunday
games) to compare selections with your resident experts.
If the contestant beats your expert in correct selections, she wins a footballrelated prize season tickets to a local popular football teams games (pro
or college, as long as its popular)...or four tickets to an upcoming big game.
At the end of the season, the contestant who picked the highest percentage of
winners receives an additional big prize: How about a huge plasma TV to
watch next seasons games on?

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FOOTBALL PREDICTIONS: MALES vs. FEMALE

Select a male and a female contestant each week of the football season to
come on the show and pick the winners in the upcoming weekends pro
games each explaining their choices and, hopefully, engaging in goodnatured disagreement over their respective choices.
Each contestant gets some prize for trying, but the winner receives something
football oriented: a big TV to watch the games on, season passes, etc.

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FOOTBALL WIDOWS
During the football season, award movie passes to female listeners, with the
passes good for Monday night (or whatever weekday night football airs in
your market), while their spouses/boyfriends are glued to the tube.
Or award bowling passes, etc.

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4TH OF JULY: AMERICAN TRIVIA

For correctly answering American trivia questions, award your listeners with
America-oriented prizes: apple pies, tickets to baseball games, ice cream, etc.
Dont make the questions too easy, or itll be boring.

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4TH OF JULY FIREWORKS SIMULCAST

M105 simulcasted a locally televised fireworks display.
They used one channel for the missiles being fired off (with a mic planted at
the launching area).
The other channel was used to pick up the explosions in the air via a wired
weather balloon stationed above the grounds.
A very clever idea.

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FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA

KRAK referred to this as their Cities Game.
Each hour sees a new clue given on-air.
The clues lead to the identity of the mystery city, and the clues are tough.
(Examples of clues but of obvious ones that youd be unlikely to use:
cable cars for San Francisco or Astrodome for Houston.)
KRAK featured 10 different cities with 10 winners, each of whom won a trip
for two to any city served by a particular airline that was tied into the
promotion.

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GARAGE SALE: DRIVE-IN GARAGE SALE

KELO worked with a local drive-in movie on this one.
Anyone with anything to sell pays $5 to rent a drive-in space (where cars
usually park for the movie), selling items from the trunk of the car.
Admission for bargain hunters is free, and the stations programming is piped
in through the speakers.
KELO split the profits with the drive-in, but youll generate a lot more
goodwill by letting the drive-in settle for concession stand profits while you
donate 100% of the sellers fees to charity.
(No drive-in theater near you? Use a huge parking lot thats empty on
weekends.)

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GARAGE SALE: WORLDS LARGEST INDOOR GARAGE SALE

Quite a few stations build annual promotions around that claim.
The idea is simple:
The station gathers together many local charitable groups under one roof
(e.g., an arena), lets them sell their goods and keep all their own profits,
throws in live entertainment, has air personalities mingling in the crowd, and
perhaps attempts to break a Guinness world record.
Many people love garage sales but dont like driving all over town, only to
discover the particular sale is a wash-out.
With 100 or more groups selling their rummage, candies, cakes, refreshments,
antiques, etc., there should be something for everyone.

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GARBAGE: LIVE GARBAGE REPORTER

KRMGs John Erling checked out his citys new garbage pickup system by
spending a morning riding with one of the municipal trucks, radioing in
frequent reports.
This should be a fun idea especially if you invite listeners to meet you
along the way for (very short) on-air conversations.

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GOLD: FREE GOLD

The Prize: An ounce (or some other weight, chosen perhaps to reflect your
stations frequency) of gold.
The Contest: Make the closest guess as to the exact value of that amount of
gold on a certain date, according to a pre-determined gold market (e.g., the
London market).
To give each entrant two chances to win, you could also have them guess the
value of a certain amount of silver on that date, too.

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GOLD: OWN PART OF A GOLD MINE

Or uranium.
Or silver.
Or an oil well.
The key here is to give away shares of stock in a highly speculative venture
that might actually pay off big.
By giving away shares of the stock, youre allowing your winners to take
part in a risk-free gamble risk-free because youve put up the money for
the stock in the first place.

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GOLF: WINTER GOLF TOURNAMENT

What makes this golf tournament special is that its held on a snow-covered
golf course.
Use red golf balls for visibility.
Should be lots of fun, and if you do your PR work it also should generate lots
of outside publicity up to and including national TV network news.

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* GRANDPARENTS DAY (September)

The Prize: A complete photographic studio sitting for your children.
The hook is that sets of prints are made for you and for both sets of your
kids grandparents three sets of prints, complete with three photo albums.

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GROCERIES: THE GREAT GROCERY GIVEAWAY

This one is a simple drawing/response promotion.
Listeners send in grocery receipts with their names, addresses & phone
numbers on the back.
Once or twice an hour a receipt is drawn, the persons name is read, then the
person has X-number of minutes to call in and win the amount of the receipt
in cash.

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GROCERIES: THE GREAT GROCERY GRAB

Your winner is allowed a set amount of time (usually tied to your broadcast
frequency) to grab all the food he can.
Variations on Rules: The winner has to carry the groceries to a certain spot
(finish line) in the store, making as many trips as he can.
The winner may or may not be allowed to use a grocery cart.

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* GROUCH DAY (October)

Listeners call in to describe the grouch in their lives spouses, boyfriends,
girlfriends, etc.
Theyre required to share at least one example of the persons grouchiness.
The Prize: A station t-shirt with the words, MY SPOUSE IS A
GROUCH or MY LOVER IS A GROUCH.
(Give them a choice or just go with the second one. You dont want to
freeze out all of your non-married listeners.)
Additional Prize: A grouch pouch, a little pouch-type bag of chocolate
candy to sweeten the grouchs disposition.

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GROUNDHOGS DAY (February 2)

Your telephone caller has to predict whether the (recorded) groundhog will
see his shadow.
You might use a speeded up (or otherwise humorous) voice for the
groundhog, coming out of his hole and looking around.
Incorrect guesses win a small prize say, a pint of ice cream.
Correct guesses win a bigger prize say, a restaurant dinner for four.

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GROUNDHOGS DAY PARADE

Heres a chance to spoof the traditional parade scene.
Sponsor a Mister & Miss Groundhog competition, parade down some city
street (broadcasting live), see if the mayor will issue a proclamation honoring
all local groundhogs, award prizes for the prettiest, ugliest, most talented
groundhogs in the parade.
Treat the entire promotion with a tone of mock solemnity.

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GROUNDHOGS DAY PRIZE

WLW awarded listeners genuine ground hog that is, pork sausage.
Ten pounds for each winners freezer makes for a nice prize.

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GROUNDHOGS DAY: THE SHADOW KNOWS

This event is lighthearted in nature, and its one of the few annual holidays
you can tie into without being accused of over-commercializing a solemn
and/or religious occasion.
Celebrate by sending a station representative out into the public, ready to give
away $20, $50 or $100 bills.
But to tie it in with Groundhogs Day, dub your prize giver Lamont
Cranston.
Old-timers will recognize Lamont Cranston as old-time radios The Shadow.
And what does the groundhog look for today?
His shadow!
Once or more per hour, you announce that during the next song Radio Xs
Lamont Cranston (who could be male or female) will be walking into a place
of business somewhere in the city.
The first person to say to Lamont, Are you Radio Xs Lamont Cranston?
gets the cash, and the winner quickly is announced on the-the-air.
If you do this once per hour, then each hour thousands of customers and
clients in stores, shops and offices will be asked, Are you Radio Xs Lamont

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Cranston?
With at most one exception, none of them will be, and most can be expected
to ask what the heck the other person is talking about.
And the other person will proceed to explain your contest and talk about
your station and when the customer/client leaves the place of business, she
might well give you a listen!

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HALLOWEEN: BLOODMOBILE
Jocks dress as vampires and accompany the local Red Cross bloodmobile as
they seek blood donors.
Interviews with donors are broadcast live.
Promote upcoming locations, offering hit CDs or movie passes to donors.
This promotion can run all during Halloween week.

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HALLOWEEN: HAUNTED HOUSE

An oldie but a goodie.
Dont charge admission, but have someone stationed at the entrance to
accept donations to UNICEF.
Have your personalities dress up in costumes and try out their character
voices.
Have your production people work up some great sound effects, and
challenge your engineer to rig up the place for maximum auditory effects.
Also have plenty of cider, candy, cookies (and to please the more strict
parents some fruit and sugarless gum) on hand.

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HALLOWEEN: MY SCARIEST MOMENT

Invite listeners to share their scariest scenarios, having them begin with:
My scariest moment would be....
To start the ball rolling, give a couple of your own examples, such as:
My scariest moment would be checking into a motel with my wife and
having the desk clerk say, Nice to see you again, Mr. Smith!

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HALLOWEEN PARTY FOR KIDS

These days many parents are afraid to let their children go trick-or-treating,
but they dont want to deprive their kids of fun.
Why not take over a large section of a shopping mall the way malls do with
Santa Clauses for childrens pictures, only 10 or 20 times the covered area
and put on a safe, supervised Halloween party for young children?
Offer refreshments, bobbing for apples, prize for everyone.
Parents or station personnel can lead the children through the enclosed area,
and the kids can come dressed in costume.

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HALLOWEEN VISITS
Heres another promotion thats done strictly for goodwill.
Your station personalities dress up in costumes and visit kids in area hospitals,
handing out bags (with your station name prominently displayed) of nontoxic, safe games, toys, puzzles, etc.
You wont want to include candy, as many of the children will be on special
diets.
Dont bother to pat yourself on the back on-air concerning your stations
efforts; the word will get around from grateful parents all over the city.

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HAPPY HOURS
Once a week, your station broadcasts live from a local restaurant or lounge,
inviting one and all to come by for free hors doeuvres and non-alcoholic
beverages.
(I say non-alcoholic to avoid potential liability issues that can derive from
serving free booze.)
Heres a chance to add some fun & excitement to a regular work week, to
give some freebies to your listeners, and to give your listeners a chance to
come out and meet you.

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HEALTH FAIR
Gather specialists from all possible areas of health care at one weekend
location.
Listeners will be able to be tested for blood pressure, vision, hearing, and
other other health concerns.
Booths will be provided for established non-profit health groups to offer free
literature and/or demonstrations.
Line up sponsors to pay for the booths and for promotional materials
(including signs identifying the booths).
Give limited sponsorship credits within your station promos:
...sponsored in part by your friends at Peoples Bank, City Pharmacy,
and XYZ Department Store.
All sponsors are credited at various times on a rotating schedule.
No admission is charged.
Naturally, your station name will be prominently displayed everywhere.
You can call it The Radio X Health Fair.
Have station employees spread throughout the grounds, wearing distinctive

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garb or easy identifiables such as straw hats, to answer questions and be of

service to the public.
(Make sure all employees understand they are expected to act in a totally
pleasant, friendly manner.)

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HIGH-LOW
This is an old radio classic.
Essentially what happens is callers try to guess the exact amount of the
stations cash jackpot.
Each wrong guess is met by the jock saying, No, thats too high or No,
thats too low.
The idea is to keep listeners tuned to your station long enough to home in on
the exact amount in question.
Whoever correctly guesses the exact amount first wins that amount in cash.

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HOME SHOW
Put together a fairground deal with merchants booths, free admission, free
entertainment, etc.
The theme is merchandise and services that have to do with the home.
Merchants include furniture, gardening, carpet cleaning, paint, appliances, etc.
A good Spring promotion.
If some of the merchants give free demonstrations of handyman techniques,
youre assured of a good turnout.

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HORSE RACE: HUMAN HORSE RACE

If your area has a race track, promote a race among station personalities,
news people, etc., held between two regular races at the track with the
contestants riding not horses but bicycles (or roller skates, roller blades, or
adult tricycles).
During the week of the promotion, you qualify phone-in bettors who
choose the personality they think will win the race around the track.
All qualifying bettors automatically win free admission to the track that night.
After the race is run, a drawing is held from among the names of the bettors
who chose the winning personality.
The winner of the drawing gets a 10-speed bike (or a motorcycle or a car)
plus two season tickets to the track...with two runners-up also receiving
season tickets.
The drawing is held live at the track immediately after the race, with the
winner announced over the P.A. system.

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HOW DO YOU SPELL MUSIC?

Just like the class Rolaids commercial. (I spell relief R-O-L-A-I-D-S.)
Your station representatives hit the streets, asking people, How do you spell
music?
People who answer with your call letters win cash prizes.
Obviously, you can substitute sports or talk or conversation or
news for music.

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* HUMOR MONTH (varies)

Every day for the entire month, take one caller per hour to share a favorite
joke.
It must be clean enough to be aired, and it cant be one thats already been
aired during the contest.
To insure a relatively fresh batch of jokes, you might require the jokes to be
new to you.
If you know the joke already (not if you simply figure out the punchline),
interrupt the caller with a buzzer and finish it for him, thank him for trying,
and immediately go for another contestant.
Hourly winners get some handy, small electronic prize.
At the end of each week a drawing is held from the weeks winners to give
away a bigger prize.
At the end of the month, all hourly winners who havent won a weekly prize
go into a final drawing for an even bigger prize.

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I LOVE YOU (CITY)

This is another version of the block party idea.
Contestants say why they love your city, and the station comes out to the
winners home, sets up a barbecue, brings plenty of food & beverage, and
cooks for the winners and 40 neighbors.
They also bring picnic tables, a badminton set, croquet set, etc. all of which
they leave with the winner when the partys over.
And before they leave, they CLEAN UP everything including scrubbing
down the grill.

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I LOVE YOU (CITY) MONTH

Get the mayor or city council to declare a month as I Love You (City)
Month.
Throughout the month, your station airs little vignettes spotlighting all the
reasons why people love your city.
Distribute t-shirts that spell out that message, right above your call letters.

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INCOME TAX: FREE INCOME TAX SERVICE

Tie in with a local accounting firm to award free calculating of income tax
returns to five winners (announcing one each day for a week).
Winners should be announced by early March, so therell be plenty of time to
get it done.
The accounting firm benefits from the free publicity as its name is constantly
being mentioned.
Note: Make sure the firm understands that:
1.
There is to be no charge whatsoever to the winners.
2.
Winners will not be hustled in & out. Full, complete attention will be paid
to their returns. (Explain to the firm that the goal is for each winner to
tell all their friends how wonderful their service was.)
3.
Other than limiting it to personal returns (not business returns), there are
no other restrictions on eligibility. All five winners might file the 1040A
Short Form. On the other hand, one or more might have many
investments, property, etc. No matter how involved a winners return is,
though, its to be given a completely thorough preparation.

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INCOME TAXES: I.R.S. SPELLS DOLLARS

Your phone contestant must predict the order in which the letters I, R,
and S will come up in a prerecorded rotation.
(I, R and S, of course, stand for Internal Revenue Service.)
Winners get, say, $500 to help pay their taxes.
Youll average one winner out of every six callers, assuming you select your
letter orders randomly.

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INCOME TAXES: LAST-MINUTE INCOME TAX RETURNERS

WRIE had station personnel at the local Post Office late on the afternoon of
April 15 the last day for postmarking income tax returns.
They gave out coffee and donuts and commiserated with the people standing
in line, waiting to make sure their returns were postmarked April 15.
A trophy was given to the last person to mail a return before the Post Office
closed.

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THE IVE NEVER WON ANYTHING IN MY LIFE CONTEST

KWST came up with a simple, fun contest.
To enter, the listener simply had to send in a postcard with a guess as to how
many total entries would be received.
The closest guess won.

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JAIL: GET ME OUT OF JAIL

Perhaps the most common variation on this promotion is for the local sheriff
to haul away the jock from her on-air show, lock her up in jail, and refuse to
release the jock until bail has been posted in the form of a minimum total
of charitable donations from listeners.
But KDON had a jock incarcerated in a jail formed by six-packs of soft
drinks.
When all the sodas were purchased by listeners, the jock was set free.
Presumably, the soda was donated by the bottler (most bottlers are eager to
build public image, due to the extreme competitiveness of their business), and
the total proceeds (not profits) were donated to some charity.

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JOB: I LOVE MY JOB BECAUSE....

WBMS Bobby OJay had listeners call in to say why they love their jobs.
A drawing was held among qualifiers to select a winner.
The Prize: A five-course candlelight lunch for the winner and nine coworkers complete with hostess, waiters, silver service, and a gourmet
menu selected by the winner.
Note: Be flexible with the nine co-workers rule: If there are ten or eleven
co-workers in the immediate office or plant area, its better to include them
than to create bad feeling among the fellow employees.

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JOKE-TELLING CHAMPIONSHIPS
You can tie this in with *National Joke Telling Week or simply hold it
whenever the fancy strikes you.
Take one or two telephone contestants each hour, with each contestant telling
a joke, and record each joke for use in the championships finals.
After each new entry, open the phone lines for five minutes and have listeners
call in and rate the preceding joke on a scale of 1 to 10.
Have someone field the calls, jotting down each numerical score for that
particular joke.
Accept entries for a week.
Your five highest scoring entries become your five finalists.
With a little ingenuity, you should be able to find some well-known comedian
or comic actor (e.g., one who comes from your part of the country) to pick
the winning entry on-air, with all five finalists being played for him on your
show.
If you cant land a big celebrity, you always can put together a local
celebrity panel the mayor, a local TV weathercaster, the local car dealer
whose commercials everyone hates, etc.
Have them assign each joke a score from 1 to 10, then tally up the votes and

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declare your winner.

Suggested Prizes:
1.
Fly the winner & guest to the taping of a hit TV comedy.
2.
Feature the winners photograph and winning joke on your website...and

in a full-page newspaper ad.
3.
Put together a package of joke-oriented prizes: whoopee cushions,

dribble glasses, etc.

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CASEY JONES BIRTHDAY (March 14)

The Contest: Callers are asked to fill in the blank, each being given a
railroad-related question.
Example: The wreck of the old _______.
A)
19
B)
97
C)
Grey Mare
D)
Mississippi
(The answer, of course, is 97.)
The Prize: An exotic train journey...or an electric train set!

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JUKEBOX
Heres a way to build quarter-hours by putting a twist to the old favorite of
giving away a jukebox filled with oldies.
A typical old (circa 1960s) jukebox holds 40 records. Convert that to 40 CDs
-- either oldies or current hit artists.
Assign each CD a specific jukebox number (e.g., A12, B3, etc.).
Over the course of a week, every hour play a cut from one of the Jukebox
CDs and announce its Jukebox Number.
This will allow each CD to be identified several times during the week, along
with many promos for the following week.
During the second week, schedule giveaways based on the correct caller
identifying the jukebox number of the following song which comes from
one of the Jukebox CDs.
At the end of the second week, hold a drawing from faxed or e-mailed
entries, giving the first contestant who identifies all 40 (title & artist) in order
the jukebox, fully stocked with CDs.

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KITE FLY IN THE PARK

Just what it says.
Your station provides free food, parking, and entertainment one Sunday
afternoon for a family kite flying event, with prizes for the highest flyer, most
original, prettiest, biggest, smallest, youngest flyer, oldest flyer.

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K-TEL STYLE PROMO SPOT

WNRS produced some promo spots that imitate the classic K-Tel style of
record advertising, using the types of hit songs the station programs.
At the end of the spots just when the listeners were expecting to hear
where they should send their money came the tag line that they could get
all that music for free, right here on WNRS.
WNRS made two different spots: Country Gold (highlighting their oldies)
and Million Dollar Music (highlighting current hits).
A clever idea.
Just dont overexpose the bogus spots (to avoid the annoyance factor of the
real ones on which theyre based).

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LETS MAKE A DEAL

Your telephone contestant selects one of a dozen envelopes.
The jock opens the envelope and reveals the prize that is contained within.
The caller then can choose to keep the prize or to trade it for another
envelope.
Throughout the run of the contest, the big prizes are heavily promoted on-air,
which gives the callers an incentive to give up a smaller prize in the hopes of
trading for a bigger one.
Naturally, some callers will trade a modest prize for what turns out to be a
real clunker which just adds to the fun.

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LISTENER PROFILES
Promote your station by profiling interesting & respected persons in your
community who listen regularly.
Create audio spots along the lines of:
Jim Smith loves a challenge. Thats probably why he became a cop, and
thats probably why he spends his weekends racing formula cars. His life is
never dull, and he doesnt expect his radio station to be dull, either...which
is why he listens to Radio X.
Back this up with ads in your local newspaper and space on your website,
featuring much the same copy and a photo of the listener.
Feature a new profile once or twice each week, with earlier ones going into a
slower rotation.

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MAPS: ROAD MAPS

In the old days, road maps were given away for free by gas stations
everywhere.
Now, of course, those maps cost two or three bucks each and many
people resist paying for something they formerly received for free.
Why not print up your own city road maps, complete with plenty of
promotional advertising for your station and, if you wish, paid advertising
from participating clients?
Do it for profit, or sell just enough advertising to pay for the printing....and
give the maps away to listeners.

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MARBLES TOURNAMENT
KVOO sponsored a tournament among the mayors of five area towns.
During the week preceding the contest, you can broadcast recorded trash
talk predictions from the competing mayors, boasting about how theyll
demolish their foes.
Before the big match, you might interview each opponent to learn about any
secret strategies they might have.
Play-by-play broadcast should be fun, too.

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MARCHING BAND: THE RADIO X MARCHING BAND

This has been done many times over the years, but its still new to many
markets.
The idea is to hold an official parade (complete with parade permits) to
celebrate either a well-known holiday or one of your own device.
Anyone who wants to can join the parade on the condition that each
person carries a transistor radio tuned to your stations frequency...which
plays march music especially for the parade.

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MASCOT: THE SECRET MASCOT

This is for stations trying to sew up the teen audience.
Its a typical prerecorded sounds set-up, with the telephone (or live, in-studio)
contestant attempting to guess which high school mascot will come up next.
The prerecordings are of appropriate sound effects for all the local school
mascots (tigers, bulldogs, etc.).
Teen interest should be piqued by the school spirit competitive aspect of it.

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MAYOR: HAVE THE MAYOR CO-HOST YOUR SHOW

The idea is the mayor actually plays disc jockey reading commercials,
selecting the music (some of which he might even bring in from home),
giving sports scores, taking calls on-air.
Youre there too, of course, to handle any emergencies and to kibbutz the
mayors handling of your show.
This will be a nice change of pace for you, fun for your audience, and
(hopefully) both fun and good PR for the mayor.
Hint: Be sure to notify the newspapers in advance, so they can send a
photographer.

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MAYOR: IF THE MAYOR HAS CO-HOSTED

THE COMPETITIONS SHOW...
...Then it would be silly for you simply to repeat the concept.
But you can use that fact to create a very funny event:
Have some less exalted office-holder co-host your show for example, the
head of the citys Sanitation Department.
Explain to your audience that another station in town had the mayor on, but
this was the best you could do.
In honor of your guest, you might even have a ready supply of garbage
related songs (Dont Throw Your Love Away, I Gave My Heart To The
Junkman, Come And Get It, etc.).

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MINIATURE GOLF TOURNAMENT

Heres another promotion which can benefit a charity, this time using the
facilities of a local miniature golf course.
Charge a $5 entry fee, and have divisions such as male, female, senior
citizens, etc., with a winner (low score) for each division.
Offer each division winner a choice of three good prizes (e.g., set of golf
clubs, weekend vacation for two, home entertainment center) plus an extra
prize for the grand prize winner (the person with the single lowest score of all
divisions) perhaps $500 cash.
You also can throw in a free Coke for everyone who finishes, a station t-shirt
for everyone who shoots par or better, and a free CD a week for a year from
a local music store for anyone who makes a hole-in-one.

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THE MISSING BEATLES (or substitute your artist) SONG

For a weekend, your format is going to be ignored.
WHCN played every Beatles song except one in alphabetical order.
The first listener to call in and identify the missing song won an entire Beatles
library.
Dont take calls, though, until all the songs have been played.
The great thing here is your quarter-hours will be strengthened by long-term
listening (which is necessary to win, unless a listener just happens to hear the
two songs that surround the missing one).
If you pick the right superstar for your format, your non-playing listeners also
should enjoy it.
Bonus Tip: You might also throw in a fancy sound system for your winner
to play her new CD library on.

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MOBILE SEA CRUISER

WYRE purchased a 53-foot yacht that is used for reports on weather & water
conditions, covers boating events, hosts remote broadcasts, and simply is seen
by the considerable segment of their audience that indulges in boating.

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THE RADIO X MONEY MACHINE

Heres a very original idea used by WKY.
They qualified contestants all week long.
(The method doesnt matter; they used a variation of identifying the last three
songs played.)
On Saturday, all qualifiers met at a local banks automated teller machine.
Each contestant was given a differently coded ATM card, which he then
inserted and waited for the cash payoff.
Minimum amount was $20; maximum was $5,000.
If your budget is smaller, use a $20 minimum and one $500 maximum each
Saturday.
Hint: Tie in with a multi-branch bank and spend each successive Saturday
at a different branch, making for a multi-week promotion.

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MONEY MELTDOWN
A couple of hundred silver dollars are frozen in a huge block of ice, which is
put on display at a sponsor location.
Contestants register by filling out forms at the sponsors location, guessing
exactly when the ice will be totally melted.
The contestant with the closest correct guess wins the silver dollars.
The runner-up gets the melted ice!

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MONEY MOUTH
The rules are simple:
Each telephone contestant is assigned a topic to talk about for a set length of
time (one minute, or your frequency translated into seconds, etc.).
For each second the contestant talks without saying uh, um, and (and
any other conversational crutches youd care to identify), the contestant gets
one dollar.
The topic isnt announced until the contestant is on-air.
Choose offbeat, fun topics that will test the imaginativeness of your
contestants e.g., housebreaking a water buffalo, building things out of
seaweed, etc.

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MONEY TUBE
Another retail traffic builder.
A typical money tube is made of plastic, measures 7 feet tall, and is mounted
on a 2-foot base.
Your contestant enters the tube, and a fan blows several hundred dollar bills
all around her.
She has X-number of minutes (or seconds) to shove as many bills as possible
through a six-inch hole in front of her.
She keeps however much she manages to push outside of the tube.
Sure, it sounds crazy.
But wouldnt you go down to your local shopping mall to see it?

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MOTHERS DAY: MOMS ON-THE-AIR

Your jocks share their air shifts with their own mothers.
The mothers get to pick their own music, reminisce about the jocks
childhoods, answer personal questions about their DJ children by taking
on-air phone calls from listeners....

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MOTHERS DAY: NAME THAT MOM

Your listeners hear the recorded voice of a woman, telling all about what her
son/daughter was like as a child.
To win, the contestant must correctly guess which jocks mother it is.

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* MOTHER-IN-LAW DAY (October)

Hourly callers win the prize for their mothers-in-law.
The Prize: Personalized, framed award certificates, proclaiming the recipient
Mother-In-Law of The Year...plus a dozen roses.
Simple, but sure to be appreciated by the recipients.

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MOVIES: CHEAP MONDAY NIGHT MOVIES

Arrange with a local theater to charge half-price (or a cheaper price built
around your frequency) all evening long, showing the regularly scheduled
movie.
The theater profits by filling the house on its slowest evening of the week
and raking in the profits at the concession counter.

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MOVIES: MIDNIGHT MOVIES FOR CHARITY

WQZI featured classic movies at a couple of local theaters on weekends, with
the proceeds going to local charities.
You should be able to get the theaters free for the on-air mentions, with the
theater keeping the concession profits.
Charge just a few dollars to get in (or a small amount tied to your frequency,
of course).

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MOVIES: MORNING MOVIE PREMIERE

Lots of stations promote movie premieres.
But heres a way to have lots of people talking about your event all day long.
Arrange for a special premiere of a new movie the morning of the day the
film opens locally.
By morning, I mean as early as 6:00AM!
You should be able to get the theater without charge in exchange for all the
advance publicity youll be giving the films opening.
You could serve coffee and donuts.
Or you could arrange a trade with your local McDonalds to provide their
mini-breakfasts.
Yes, a movie at 6AM is a weird idea.
But you know that every one of your winners (who are selected all during
the previous week) will be talking about it and about your station when
they arrive at work or school immediately after attending the premiere.
Note: Its possible that quite a few people will qualify for the screening but
decide not to show up due to the early hour. To discourage no-shows, you
might consider holding a couple of big prize drawings at the screening.

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MOVIE EXTRAS
Keep in close touch with your local Chamber of Commerce.
Eventually a motion picture will be filmed somewhere relatively near you.
Contact the films production company and see if you can arrange to award
as a contest prize a job as an extra (e.g., in a crowd scene) for a day.
Everyone wants to be in the movies, and the subject matter is ripe for lots of
station exploitation.

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MUG YOUR BOSS

KBPI asked listeners to submit the names of their bosses.
Names were read each morning, and bosses who heard their names and
called the station within a specified time frame received a KBPI coffee mug
plus a mug for the person who entered his or her name.

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MUSIC QUIZ: MULTI-STEP MUSIC QUIZ

Musical trivia quizzes are nothing new.
But you can make it more exciting by challenging your listeners with a 5-step
quiz.
One incorrect answer and the contestant loses; each question is successively
harder.
The contestant can stop at any time and keep the money she already has won
without going on to the next question.
Sample amounts: $10; $50; $100; $250; $500

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MYSTERY HOUSE
WLEE gave clues as to the exact location & address of their mystery house.
Contestants entered by picking up a pre-printed postcard at any of the local
McDonalds restaurants.
On each card was printed the message:
Is this the WLEE Mystery House? Listen to WLEE for details.
When a listener thought he knew which house it was, he mailed the card to
that house.
Naturally, many cards were mailed by listeners to non-mystery houses
which undoubtedly caused many of the people who received the cards to
tune in WLEE and find out just what the heck was going on.

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MYSTERY WHISPERER
KING added a couple of clever twists to the old Mystery Voice contest.
They had a mystery celebrity guarding their vault.
They broadcast the celebritys whisper and clues each day.
Contestants registered (mail, e-mail, fax), and when their names were drawn
on-air, they had a certain amount of time to call in.
When they called in, they were given the choice of taking a small cash award
(in KINGs case, $11) or trying to guess the mystery voice in the hopes of
winning the big cash jackpot.
With each wrong guess, another $11 was added to the jackpot.

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MYSTERY: RADIO MYSTERY CHALLENGE

There used to be (perhaps there still is) a syndicated Ellery Queen contest
that involved setting up a crime, giving details & clues, and having a
contestant solve the mystery either by pointing out the vital inconsistency in
an alibi or by logically eliminating all the other suspects.
You can create & produce your own mystery contest along the same lines,
having some creative staff member (or hiring a local freelance professional)
write a 90-second script, recording it with station talent, and tying it all up
with your fictional detectives voiceover.
Play the hours episode once, and then later in the hour take a phone
contestant and replay the mystery. If they solve it, they win the prize.
You might well consider selling the promotion to a sponsor; call it The
(McDonalds) Radio Mystery Challenge.
After playing the episode, give the contestant 30 seconds to think about the
answer while you play the sponsors spot.
The solutions should be intelligent but not overly tricky or obscure clever
enough to be challenging, but easy enough so that the average intelligent
adult will have a pretty good chance of winning. In this contest, youll want
to have perhaps 60% winners.
After the spot, the contestant gives her solution.

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Meanwhile, the jock has two prerecorded responses ready.

The wrong response triggers a recording of the fictional *detective saying
something like, Im sorry. Thats a good guess, but Im afraid youre
wrong on this one.
If the contestant is right, the detective continues the story, exposing the true
culprit and verifying that the caller indeed is correct.
*I am not suggesting that you use the name Ellery Queen or any other
trademarked or copyrighted name.

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NAME THAT SONG

Heres a natural for music stations, and its mostly self-explanatory.
Start with a large jackpot which can be won by the first contestant naming
the song (either a current hit or an oldie) after hearing just the first note.
If your frequency is 102.7, you might offer $1,027 for naming the tune in one
note.
If the first contestant cant do it, next hour you go to two notes for $102.70.
The following hour you go to three notes for $10.27, which remains the prize
(even as you add more and more notes as clues) until you get a winner.

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NEW YEARS DAY

During the week before New Years, set up a voice mail system to record
New Years resolutions from your listeners.
Have each caller give his name, address and phone number, followed by a
resolution.
On New Years Day, play back the resolutions (without the addresses and
phone numbers), once per half-hour.
Each person has X-number of minutes to call in after hearing his own voice
to win a prize.

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ON TOUR WITH (GROUP)

Youll need to know well in advance the touring schedule of a super-hot
recording act.
Take callers hourly, and arrange a random selection method of selecting one
of the following prizes:
The acts latest CD
Cash (in various amounts)
A library of all the acts recordings
Concert tickets and a trip for two to one of the cities on the tour
When that last choice comes up the big prize itll be for a specific
city/concert...and at the end of the promotion, youll have given away trips to
all of the cities on the tour.

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ONE-ARMED BANDIT
Take a contestant via telephone, announce the prize up for grabs that hour,
and have the contestant choose one of the jocks names to come up winners
in the slot machine.
If all three slots on the machine come up with that jocks name, the caller
wins the prize.
Example: If the contestant picks Bobby Rivers and the One-Armed
Bandit after appropriate sound effects and in a prerecorded mechanical
voice reads out Bobby Rivers, Dave Daniels, Bobby Rivers, theres
no winner that hour.
But if all three are the same jock and that jock was selected by the
contestant then the caller wins.
Hint: Dont make the three consecutive names come up too rarely. Have
lots of prizes, some small, some larger with the grand prize probably being
a trip to Las Vegas.

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OLDIES: RADIO X BECOMES A THING OF THE PAST

This one has worn well through the years.
Promote heavily for a week:
On Saturday, May 1, Radio X becomes a thing of the past.
On Friday, add at 12 noon to the teaser.
Dont allow the jocks to ad-lib anything about the promo, and politely tell
callers that youre not allowed to reveal anything more and that it all will be
explained at noon Saturday.
Naturally, your listeners will think your station is going off the air or changing
formats.
When noon Saturday rolls around, you very dramatically announce:
Its 12:00. And now Radio X becomes a thing of the past. For the next 48
hours well be playing nothing but the biggest rock & roll (whatever your
format is) hits of the past 25 years...a fantastic journey through countless
musical memories...as Radio X becomes a thing of the past.
Highlight the weekend with old station jingles and news reports, drop-ins
from long-gone former jocks, etc.

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OLDIES: YOUR OLDIES BUT GOODIES CONTEST

Listeners send in postcards (or enter online) featuring their favorite oldies by
title & artist, one per card.
Stipulate that only oldies in your active library (i.e., oldies youd be
reasonably likely to play anyway) will be selected at random for airplay.
Each card also lists the entrants Oldies Computer Code which consists of
the persons initials and the first three digits of her street address.
Example: Mary Smith of 365 Main Street would have a Computer Code of
MS356.
If there are fewer than three digits in the street address, fill in the missing
digits with zeroes. Thus, Bob Johnson of 2 Palm Avenue becomes BJ200.
Have your Oldies Computer play X-number of records per hour, identifying
each with its own Computer Code.
The person who contributed that particular oldie and whose code is
announced has X-number of minutes to call in and identify herself.
(Obviously, entrants must include their actual address in their entries.)
Suggested Prizes:
$200 worth of CDs from a local music shop
$300 cash
Weekly award of an oldies-filled CD jukebox

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OLYMPICS: THE RADIO X OLYMPICS

Legal Warning: Olympics is trademarked, and they protect that
trademark vigorously. So youll want to come up with your own appropriate
alternative name: Radio X Summer Games, etc.
Schedule exciting events such as:
The Potato Chip Discus Throw
The Ping Pong Ball Shot Put
The 20-Yard Crawl
The Backward Broad Jump
The Marshmallow Lift & Jerk (object is to lift the most marshmallows
without dropping any)
The Rubber Ducky Swimming Meet (held in an above-ground pool, with
contestants splashing the water to propel their duckies).
Undoubtedly you can come up with more, equally silly events.

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OUTRAGEOUS: THE MOST OUTRAGEOUS CONTEST

By now this has been done (and overdone) by many stations.
When KYUU did it before it had become so commonplace they gave
away a pound of gold to the person or persons performing the most
outrageous feat.
Entries included a couple who volunteered to be married in a swimming pool,
wearing scuba gear.
Another offered to dress up as a sheep and walk through the financial district,
handing out bottles of Woolite.
One hundred semi-finalists were chosen.
Our of those, the five best suggestions were chosen to be performed by the
contestants who submitted them.
Three top (and substantial) prizes were awarded.

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OYSTER SHUCKING CONTEST

WGAR qualified ten listeners to compete by shucking up to 12 oysters within
ten minutes.
The fastest time wins or, if no one shucks all 12 in ten minutes, the most
shucked wins.

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PARDON ANNIVERSARY: I BEG YOUR PARDON (September 8)

September 8, 1974, is the day U.S. President Gerald Ford pardoned former
president Richard Nixon for any and all crimes he committed while in office.
KVIs morning host, Hardwick, commemorated the anniversary of this
occasion by inviting his listeners to call in and confess their own personal
crimes: lies, petty crimes, etc.
Believe it or not, many people actually will feel a sense of relief to have
confessed to things thatve been bothering them for years especially when
you officially pardon them after hearing their dark secrets.

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PARKING: FREE PARKING

Send a couple of part-timers to crowded downtown parking areas, looking
for cars parked in front of expired meters.
When they find one, they put in a quarter for another half hour of parking,
and they slip a brightly colored card under the windshield wiper, explaining
that the persons meter had expired but you put another coin in for them.
One station went so far as to print up slips resembling parking tickets, only
they read, NOT A TICKET! Your friends at Radio X noticed your meter
had expired, so....
Note: Believe it or not, in some cities it is illegal for a person to put money
into another drivers parking meter. Check with your local ordinances before
embarking on this promotion.

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PETS: RADIO X FEEDS YOUR FURRY FRIENDS

This uses a rotating recording set-up, with three different sound effects:
barking dog, meowing cat, chirping bird.
Your telephone contestant guesses which will come up next (guesses being
based, probably, on the types of pets the callers happen to have).
If the contestants guess matches that hours recorded animal, he wins a oneyear supply of that type of animal food.
Note: Obviously, many of your listeners have pets. But this contest will
appeal for many non-pet owners, too, because undoubtedly they have friends
whod be glad to receive a free supply of food.

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PHOTO CONTEST
Contestants enter their own photographs of your city, with professional
photographers selecting the winners.
Award winning pictures are prominently displayed at a local bank.
Have it sponsored by Kodak, Fuji, HP Printers, etc.

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PICNIC: THE HIDDEN PICNIC

WIP held a huge picnic for listeners, featuring food, games, prizes, etc.
But they never said exactly where the picnic was going to be held. Instead,
they gave clues as to its location.
At first the clues were pretty nebulous, but as the hour of the picnic
approached the clues became extremely obvious so that by the time of the
picnic everyone knew where it was.
Example of Extremely Easy Clue: If its being held at, say, Kelly Park, one
of the easy clues would be, Itll be in a park, and the name of the park
rhymes with Shelly.

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* PICNIC DAY (June 18)

Prize Suggestion #1: A fancy picnic basket, complete with plastic plates,
silverware, napkins, cups, etc.
Prize Suggestion #2: A fully catered picnic. (Work with your local deli
and/or caterer.)

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PINBALL TOURNAMENT
Your station reserves two or three machines in a video arcade.
Contestants (anyone who walks in and wants to try) pay the standard 50 (or
however much it is) and give it their best shots.
The arcade management verifies all new high scores and posts them on the
wall above the machines.
The competition is promoted for a couple of weeks.
All money paid to the machine goes to charity, and the arcade gets lots of
free publicity & goodwill (and $ action on their other machines from all the
traffic).
The top dozen scorers meet to determine the Pinball Wizard of them all.
The winner gets a brand new pinball machine and a trophy.

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PING PONG DROP

Drop thousands of ping pong balls all over your area or over a public park
or stadium from a helicopter.
Each ping pong ball is imprinted with some message.
Most would be for, say, a free Slurpee at 7-11 or a free ice-cream cone at
Baskin-Robbins.
But some are redeemable for five-dollar bills, $20, $50, $100...with perhaps a
few $1,000 winners.
Note: You dont want it to seem as if everyone gets only the cheapest
prize. If Listener A doesnt win anything larger than the Slurpee, she should
at least know someone who did win something bigger.

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PLAY EM AGAIN
KIIS-FM advised listeners to tune in at 7:40 Monday morning, at which time
the jock would play three songs in a row.
The object of the contest was to keep listening until the station again played
those same three songs in a row, in the same order...at which point the
first caller to claim the prize was awarded $50,000!
In order to keep your audience listening over such an extended period of time
(The Big Three werent repeated that same day), youve got to offer a big
cash prize.
Maybe not $50,000 but certainly not less than $5,000 for smaller markets.

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POP OFF
A version of this was done by KRBC.
Listeners called in to pop off about some pet peeve of theirs and were
rewarded with cases of soda pop.
I dont know exactly how KRBC worked it, but a likely way would be to
have an answering machine take contestants pop-offs, along with their names
& telephone numbers.
When later they hear their pop-offs being aired, theyll have a time limit
within which to call in and identify their pop-offs and win.

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* POPCORN POPPIN MONTH (October)

The Prize: A large selection of flavored popcorns, which you probably can
find locally or regionally. There are dozens of popcorn flavors for popcorn
aficionados, and by its very nature its a fun prize.
Alternative Prizes: Popcorn poppers...or how about two large tubs of
popcorn at a local movie theatre, along with a pair of movie tickets?

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POTHOLE PATROL
This was devised by WRFCs Gerry Marshall.
When the potholes miraculously appear with the arrival of Spring, have your
listeners call in to report particularly bad ones.
Put them on the air, chat with them, sympathize.
Gerry used the Crimebusters cut from the Cheap Radio Thrills
production CDs as theme music.
No prizes here, although you might hand out bumper stickers (or badges!)
that say, Im A Radio X Pothole Patrol Spotter.

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THE PRICE IS RIGHT

Heres a creative idea used by WERC.
They got together with a catalog showroom (i.e., a retailer that has both a
catalog and a bricks-and-mortar store), and every 15 minutes the jock would
describe an item in the catalog without quoting the price.
After adding half a dozen or so items to the prize packages (which means
after six quarter-hours have passed), the jock takes two callers and puts them
on the air.
He then adds one more prize to the package and has the contestants guess
the total retail cash value of the package.
The contestant who guesses closest to the exact total wins a store gift
certificate in that amount.

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PRIZE TRUCK (BY ZIP CODES)

Your station Prize Truck travels all over your primary coverage area,
dispersing goodies to listeners who are advised of new truck locations via onair announcements.
Zip Codes are used to target your visits to areas of the community where you
hope to improve your ratings (based upon examinations of previous ratings
diaries).
Each hour you announce the Zip Codes that your truck will be visiting next.
Example: If you live or work in areas that include Zip Codes 10020
through 10025, the Radio X Prize Truck is on its way to you now!
Promoting upcoming visits that way personally involves each listener, as they
listen to hear their own Zip Codes.
As silly as it might sound, it gives them more of a personal stake in the
giveaways; everyone knows their own Zip Codes the key word is their.
Its something of their own.
(Just as you take special note of a movie featuring a hometown actor even
though you never knew the person or following a professional athletes
career just because he grew up near your hometown.)
Typical Prizes: T-shirts, CDs, movie or concert passes, etc.

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PROM NIGHT
Lots of stations have put on sock hops. Why not feature a nostalgic prom
night right around the time your local high schools are having theirs?
Charge $10 admission, to be donated to charity, and feature live music from
the 70s and 80s, encouraging guests to dress the way they did back in high
school.
As a bonus, at the prom you might hold a drawing for a vintage automobile
from that era.

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* PUBLIC RELATIONS WEEK (May)

This is a fun thing for one of your jocks to do, instead of being a station
contest.
To kick off the week, have a local public relations expert come in and
completely tongue-in-cheek offer suggestions for improving your image:
how to play more impressive music, how to give the weather forecast in a
way thats more pleasing to the public, etc.
Youll need to find somebody with a very good sense of humor but who will
play it completely deadpan.

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CDs: IMAGINARY MUSIC STORE

KZZX gave away the album of the winners choice, but they spiced it up
with sound effects of a busy record store.
Before going on-air, callers would be urged to play along and act amazed by
the incredible selection of CDs in the KZZX Music Store, finally choosing
one, which they then took to the cash register.
Suggestion: Throw in a periodic surprise cash bonus.
When the contestants chosen CD is recorded on the cash register (i.e., cash
register SFX), every once in a while have the SFX include a loud bell or siren
going off, indicating that the contestant gets to make a grab from the Radio X
cash drawer.
Instruct the contestant to reach in and grab a fistful of bills...and then have the
pre-recorded check-out clerk total up the winnings.

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CDs: RECORD RUN

Your contest winner is set loose in a music store with a specified amount of
time to grab all the CDs she can carry out to the starting point (entrance to
the store).

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RENT: FREE RENT (OR MORTGAGE) PAYMENTS

The standard format for this contest is for listeners to enter by postcard and
for subsequent hourly drawings to be held.
(As with many of these ideas, you can offer online registration. But youll
need to devise a method of weeding out the many people who will attempt to
cheat the system by entering hundreds of times.)
When a contestants name is drawn, he has a pre-determined length of time
to call in and win.
If your station doesnt have an unlimited prize budget, you might limit the
amount of the mortgage payment to, say, $2,500.
Another variation is to award only one mortgage payment but for the
entire coming year.

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REPEAT: WE NEVER REPEAT OURSELVES, WE NEVER

REPEAT OURSELVES
Obviously, you need to have a large playlist to be able to pull this one off.
During one entire week, your station never plays a song twice...with one
exception.
At the end of the week, listeners send in postcards listing the song they
believe was repeated.
A drawing is held from among the correct entries, and a huge prize is
awarded.

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RIVER CLEAN-UP
KIDO passed out rubber tubes to listeners who went into the water to gather
up hundreds of discarded beer cans.
KIDO tied in the promotion with Coors beer (which presumably redeemed
the recyclable cans for cash).
Prizes can be awarded for the most cans turned in.

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RODEO: RADIO RODEO

Heres a clever twist on your basic Stop the Clock promotion.
WMAQ offered contestants $10 for each second they could stay on a
mechanical bull, up to a maximum of 67 seconds and $670. (Their frequency,
of course, is 670.)
The contestant can say Stop! at any time and keep the money accumulated
up to that point.
But if she waits too long and is thrown off the bull, she loses the money.
Suggestion: Unless youre tying it in to a local establishment that has a
mechanical bull, it would make for a more exciting production piece if you
make it a real rodeo bull rather than the mechanical kind.

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ST. PATRICKS DAY: GREEN CARNATIONS

WHBC distributed thousands of green carnations to area residents.
An interesting twist is that they hired Manpower employees to hand them out
(a good idea, good way to help the community).
WHBC included a card with each carnation.
Idea: Distribute green paper carnations with your call letters embossed on
them.

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ST. PATRICKS DAY: TRIP TO IRELAND

WOR hired four young women, dressed them up as leprechauns, and had
them distribute postcards that served as entry forms.
Typical contest rules most likely would be as follows:
Jocks select an entry every so often and allow X-number of minutes to call in
and win.
The first person to do so wins the trip.
Dont have that big a budget?
Give away a station-catered St. Patricks Day Party.
Or shower the winner with St. Patricks Day Green: 1,000 one-dollar bills.

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SANDWICH: THE WORLDS BIGGEST SANDWICH

(OR PIZZA, ETC.)
Staff members with the help of various local food merchants assemble
a record-breaking submarine sandwich, hamburger, or other food of your
choice in a high traffic shopping location.
Check with THE GUINNESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS to see what
you need to do to qualify for official consideration.
Then after the newspapers and TV crews complete their coverage sell
pieces of your creation to passersby, with the proceeds going to charity.

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SAY WHEN
Your jock plays a prerecorded list of prizes on-air, with the phone-in
contestant telling the jock when to stop by saying when.
The list consists of a variety of prizes, large and small.
The catch is that the listener gets the prize that comes immediately after he
says to stop.

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SCHOOL: TEACHER SALUTES

This should be easy to sell to an institutional client.
When the new school season begins, your station airs a series of salutes to
area teachers two salutes per hour for a week or two.
Each salute contains the names of three teachers, each teaching the same
subject.
Example: Radio X and City Bank salute three outstanding science
teachers returning to school this week: Ed Smith at Riverdale High;
Edwina Jones at Fairfield Elementary; and Roger Rogers over at Lincoln
Middle School.
Remember, everyone likes hearing their names on the radio even
teachers.

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SCRABBLE: RADIO SCRABBLE

Have contestants solve scrambled mystery words that pertain to an overall
theme.
Example:
The theme is baseball.
The prize is two season tickets for a local teams home games.
The first scrambled word might be Crackerjacks, and the first clue consists
of three letters: s, r, r.
If theres no winner in the first round or two, add another letter: s, r, r, a...and
keep going until someone guesses the word.
Your quarter-hour shares will be helped by people listening continually not
only to enter but also to hear incorrect guesses (which might lead them to the
correct answer).

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SCRAMBLED CALL LETTERS

A twist on the old scrambled songs, this requires listeners to identify the hit
songs from which a new station jingle is composed.
To make it really challenging, look for parts of words that can be used to
make letters.
Example: WABC might come from the following:
W double plus you
A the second half of the second syllable of away
B the first syllable of because
C the second syllable of mercy
All of those words, of course, are taken from hit songs.
Contestants must identify the song title & artist in the order they appear.

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SCRAMBLED COMMERCIALS
This also is similar to the traditional Scrambled Songs contest, but KFKA
did it with commercials!
Listeners had to identify each of five pieces of commercials currently running
on the station.
Sponsors whose commercials were used paid extra to be in the promotion.
Listeners were given extra clues by the fact that participating sponsors hung
special Super Business Flags at their stores.
(With a series of five 5-spot scrambles, a total of 25 sponsors would be flying
the flags.)
Each store also contributed $100 gift certificates.
Puzzle winners received gift certificates from all five of the businesses they
correctly identified.

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SCRAMBLED SONGS
Listeners hear a brief montage of pieces of five songs (current hits or oldies).
Each hour, one caller is given the chance to identify all five songs and win a
big prize.
This is a classic radio promotion that is old hat to radio pros but which
might be fresh to your listeners.

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SECRET SOUND
Instead of using the rather dull generic name, you might opt for something
along the lines of Sounds of The City or Sounds of (Your City).
Callers attempt to identify such sounds as a traffic signal control box clicking
from red to green; a car wash; coins being inserted into a parking meter.

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SECRET WORD
Tell your call-in contestant the hours subject and give her a time limit (96
seconds, etc.) in which to say the secret word.
Example:
The subject is baseball; the secret word is bleachers (a rather difficult one
to guess).
Or the word might be umpire (an easier one to guess).
If the contestant doesnt win, award a consolation prize, tell her what the
secret word was, and move on to a new subject & word the following hour.
This one should be fun both to listen to and to enter.

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SECRETARYS DAY
KWLO came up with a clever way to celebrate * Professional Secretarys
Day.
They placed ads in the local newspaper, asking secretaries to mail in their
names & places of employment for a drawing.
The Twist: The ad was written entirely in shorthand, so only a secretary
would be likely to know what it said!
Suggestion: Announce the winners names on-the-air, with the ad having
advised them to listen on that day and that if they heard their names read and
they called within the hour, theyd win a box of candy and a bouquet of
flowers.

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SERIAL NUMBER HIGH/LOW

This is the old High/Low game, with the sought-after number being not a
cash total but the serial number of an actual large denomination bill e.g.,
a thousand-dollar bill.
The first caller tries to guess the first digit; if correct, he goes on to the second
digit, and so on until he misses a digit.
When incorrect, the jock says high or low, depending upon the guess,
and awards a consolation prize.
The idea here is that to win, people have to keep listening for long periods of
time to zero in on the entire number.
With a prize that big, it can be very exciting.
Youll need several bills, of course at least five.
If you can afford only hundred-dollar bills (for example), then give each caller
a maximum of three consecutive wrong guesses, each time saying high or
low.
Two wrong guesses followed by a correct guest allows the contestant to
continue; the contestant continues until making three consecutive incorrect
guesses.

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SHRIMP FUNDRAISER
Van Harden of KRNT left Des Moines, Iowa, for Galveston, Texas, where he
bought 3.5 tons of shrimp at the local price of $1.38 per pound (Galveston is
on the Gulf of Mexico), drove it back in a refrigerated truck, and sold it to
listeners for $3.25 per pound (about a third of the local price).
All profits went to the Kidney Fund in this case, over $12,000.
A very clever promotion which pleases everyone except the local shrimp
sellers.

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SISTER CITY: ANNEX A SISTER CITY

Pick out a small town in your area that has a counterpart in another state or
country.
Examples: Humboldt, Saskatchewan, Canada and Humboldt, Tennessee,
USA. Or Selma, Alabama, and Selma, California.
Casually refer to the counterpart one day on-the-air and remark that perhaps
the two cities should join together.
Gradually promote this idea all tongue-in-cheek, of course until it
becomes a full-fledged campaign. You shouldnt have much trouble getting
the local mayor to endorse the idea and maybe the city council will pass a
resolution supporting it, too.
Then you can call the far-away mayor on-the-air and pitch him the idea.
Have station personnel circulate petitions locally, which you can present in an
official ceremony at City Hall. (Be sure to notify the newspapers for good
coverage.)
If you wish, you can tie in a contest in which the grand prize is a trip to the
far-away counterpart. In fact, you could coordinate with a radio station there
and exchange visitors, both sets of whom would be given royal welcomes
upon arrival.
You dont have to be in a big market to do this. In fact, the smaller the cities,
the more fun the concept.

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SKI: FREE (OR CHEAP) SKI BUS

Your station runs a bus from your city to the nearest big ski resort each
weekend, keeping to a regular schedule.
To help prevent people from fighting over too few seats, you can have each
person reserve a maximum of two two seats on preceding weekdays, at $5
per seat with the $5 charge not being refundable if the person doesnt
show up.

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SKI CORRALS
You can win friends by solving the problem of where skiers leave their skis
during their meal break.
Checkers in station sweaters take the skis and apply gummed logo decals with
matching numbers, one to the skis and one to the owners ski pants.
The area should be flagged with signs bearing your call letters, making for a
highly visible image builder.

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SKY REPORTS
No, not Ski Report.
No, not traffic reports from the sky.
WDHA began reporting on what to watch for each weekend in the local skies
comets, stars, orbiting spacecraft, etc.
They used a local amateur astronomer; you might be able to find an expert
from a nearby university.
Even for those not at all interested in astronomy, if done well it should be
interesting to listen to.

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SMILE DAY
Variations of this event sponsored by KEX have been done over the years.
Senior citizens and children were admitted free to a local zoo, where they
were given free dental check-ups by dentists and dental hygienists who
volunteered their time.
A very worthwhile public service promotion.
Hint: Give out toothbrushes (first being careful to check with dentists to
determine the best type) bearing your station name, e.g., RADIO X helps
me start each day with a SMILE!

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SMOKEOUT: THE GREAT AMERICAN SMOKEOUT

(Third Thursday of November)
Sponsored by the American Cancer Society, this is a day for smokers to
attempt to give up the habit...if only for a day.
Have the Society provide you with a list of concise reasons why its a good
idea to quit smoking:
Example: Smokers are 20 times more likely to die of lung cancer than
are non-smokers. (I made up that figure, just as an example.)
Then go to a local elementary school and have children record the reasons,
one per child.
Keep recording until youre sure youve got one good version of each
reason.
On the day of the smokeout, feature one of those reasons each half-hour,
billboarded by the stations recorded message which encourages smokers to
fight the good fight.
Get the American Cancer Society to sponsor the whole thing, and youve got
some interesting PSA time logged. (And you can bet the kids parents wont
mind hearing their children on the radio.)
Hints: Dont identify the kids by name. Just identify the school where they
all were recorded. And dont use children on-the-air unless you can
understand them perfectly.

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SNAKE RACES
This is just a silly, fun event.
The most likely rules would call for snakes to be placed in the center of a
large circle, with the winner being the one to reach the perimeter of the circle
first.
Make sure you specify non-poisonous snakes only!

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SOMEONE SPECIAL
This is an altered version of a WTIC promotion.
Contestants submit postcards naming someone who is special to them and
why.
Each hour the jock reads an entry, and the person who submitted it or the
someone special named in the card gets 10 minutes to call in.
If one of them calls, they each receive a cash prize of $100.
During the rest of the half hour, the someone special (whether or not she
won) repeatedly is identified, and during the next half hour the jock takes
calls from the audience at large to identify that hours someone special.
The first person to call with the right answer wins $25 and another $25
goes to that winners own someone special.

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SPORTS CARDS (BASEBALL, FOOTBALL, BASKETBALL, ETC.)

WPLO and Coca Cola issued baseball cards of Atlanta ballplayers.
Each card featured logos of the radio station, the soft drink, and the team.
The cards were given away at 150 area stores.
Each week a different player was featured, which means people kept
returning to those sponsor locations.

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SPRING: FIRST DAY OF SPRING

Celebrate Spring by giving a prize nearly everyone would enjoy: Free Spring
Cleaning, by a professional cleaning crew.
Odds are you can trade out a future advertising schedule with the house
cleaners.
Theyd never have the budget to advertise on the radio, but offering them
equal dollar value in periodic spots over a year will be great for them.
Note: Make sure theyre fully bonded, protect yourself against damage,
theft, etc.

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SPRING: RADIO X WELCOMES SPRING

WKY celebrated the first day of Spring by moving the entire days
programming out onto the stations front lawn.
Especially good if youre not too remote from the rest of your community.

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STEAK: STATION STEAK-OUT

Thats how KSSS referred to its promotion, although itll be just as fun with
pizza or spaghetti.
Listeners register at a local restaurant and call in when their names are
announced on-air.
Enough winners are chosen to fill the restaurant, and they all dine there free
on a certain evening with the station personalities performing the duties of
waiter/waitress.
A very fun promotion.

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STOCK: TAKE STOCK IN (CITY)

Heres a clever idea used by WCKY. With them, it was Take Stock in
Cincinnati.
Each hour the air personality announces the hours stock and number of
shares.
Later in the hour, the announcer makes a telephone call at random.
If the person who answers the phone knows the hours stock and number of
shares, he wins them.
The key here is to offer only stocks of locally based companies; you should
find them listed in the financial pages of your local daily newspaper.
(Or you can check with your Chamber of Commerce.)
Its a unique prize that has cash value plus the chance for substantial
appreciation in the future, and it reaffirms your stations special interest in the
city it serves.
Youre in a small town? Change it to Take Stock In (STATE).

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STONE SKIPPING TOURNAMENT

Heres a fun event for Spring or Summer, which you can use as the focal
point of a picnic in the park or at a lake.
Youll want to have local dignitaries act as official Stone Skip Counters.
Fancy trophies will add a nice touch to the event.
Hold elimination rounds:
For example, to survive the first round, contestants have to skip their stones
at least three times.
(You might give them three attempts to qualify.)
Next round, a minimum of four times, then five, etc.
In the final round, have your local sports announcer or newsperson record
the play-by-play for each contestant, to be fed back to the station for later
airplay.

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STRIKE: HAVE YOUR STAR DJ GO ON STRIKE

Your DJ comes up with a list of demands (better tasting coffee, a control
room chair that doesnt squeak, a life-sized poster of Britney Spears, etc.) and
presents it to management, on-the-air.
The DJ calls the station manager into the studio and presents his demands.
They discuss and argue about it.
The manager eventually says take it or leave it; the DJ storms out of the
building.
For the rest of the week, the DJ pickets the station building, boycotting his
own program.
The station responds by replacing the DJ with someone apparently just picked
up off the street, but in reality a part-time jock under a different name or a
jock from a sister station in another market.
The replacement jock has a hard time handling the show, plays the wrong
songs, gives incorrect time & temp, etc.
Finally the DJ and the station manager are reunited in a tearful negotiating
session, again on-air.
This should create lots of talk for your station and for your jock.

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SUMMER: THE FIRST REALLY OFFICIAL DAY OF SUMMER

This is an old radio stunt thats quite simple to execute:
Listeners send in postcards guessing the day & time the temperature in your
city will first reach 100 degrees (or whatever represents a very hot day where
you live).
You can use the first day of Spring as a kick-off point for the contest and
allow two weeks for entries to be mailed in.
The person coming closest to the actual day & time wins some summer
oriented prize (e.g., an inflatable swimming pool).
Note: Be sure to clearly state the location of the official thermometer to
be used probably the one at your radio station, or perhaps at your local
airport.

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SUMMER: HOW MANY WATERMELON SEEDS?

Heres a fun summer promotion.
You tell your listeners the size & weight of the watermelon in question; they
tell you exactly how many seeds it contains.
The watermelon makes the rounds of participating merchants.
The prize is summer-oriented.

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SUMMER: RADIO X COOLS OFF YOUR SUMMER

This is the reverse of a winter promotion youll find elsewhere in this book.
Send your station van all over the city on a hot summer day, dispensing cold
lemonade in personalized lemonade cooler glasses with your afternoon jocks
name on it (and, of course, with your station name & frequency).

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SUMMER: SOUNDS OF SUMMER

The idea here is for contestants to identify specific sounds of summer.
Some of these sounds will be easy to recognize; others will be tougher.
Examples of Sounds:
The surf
Sand being kicked in the face of a 97-pound weakling
Suntan lotion being applied
Skin getting sunburned
Eating a sandwich that has real sand in it
Bare-legged person sitting on a hot vinyl car seat
Child building a sand castle
Volleyball game being played on the beach
Joggers on the beach
Frisbee playing on the beach

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SUMMER PRIZE
If youre in a real hot locale, why not send some lucky listeners to Alaska
or to the North Pole to cool off?

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SUMMER RELIEF
WHIO did this to inaugurate their new studios, but you can do this anytime
its very hot & muggy and you want to give your listeners a no-strings gift:
Invite them out to the station for free watermelon.
Have station personalities hand out the slices along with plenty of napkins.
Every now and then run a microphone outside and cover the festivities for a
minute or two, inviting anyone driving by to stop by the station.
Whats nice about this promotion is its clear to the listener that your station
isnt getting anything out of this, aside from goodwill: no questionnaires to fill
out, no postcards to mail, no website to visit, no trying to get through on the
phone, no listening for hours in the hopes of winning a prize.

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SUMMER SAFETY TIPS

Each hour, present to your listeners tips for enjoying their summer safety,
covering such topics as:
Sunburns
Insect bites
Vacation planning
Avoiding home burglaries while away on vacation
You also can tie this in with small giveaways: suntan lotion, beach umbrellas,
insect repellant, etc.

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SUNDAE: THE WORLDS LARGEST ICE CREAM SUNDAE

The idea is simple: Create the worlds largest ice cream sundae.
Get a local ice cream shop (and perhaps a college fraternity) to participate and
dish out the results to your fans.
You might charge a nominal 50 per generous dishful, with the proceeds
going to charity.

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SUPER BOWL VIEWING PARTY

Your station secures the use of a local nightclub for the day of the big game.
Admission is free to listeners, drinks are cheap, and everyone gets to watch
the game on a wide-screen TV.
When WZXR did this, they had everyone try to predict the games final
score.
The winner won a big prize package.
A promotion like this is sure to draw an overflow crowd, so you might want
to do it at several locations simultaneously, with two air personalities hosting
each party.

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SUPER BOWL VIEWING PARTY (again)

Another version of the promotion described on the previous page.
Set up your own wide-screen viewing of the game, complete with pretzels,
popcorn and soft drinks.
Give away pairs of passes on-the-air during the previous week.
As an added bonus, during half-time hold a drawing for an appropriate prize
e.g., seasons tickets to a local teams games.

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SURVIVAL DIRECTORY
WKTU produced a wallet-sized fold-out that lists dozens of widely called
phone numbers in the city airlines, police, fire, 24-hour pharmacies,
government agencies, hospitals, etc.
A good item to distribute via sponsor locations.

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TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN

Your winner is allowed a certain amount of time in a local bank vault, during
which time she can keep all the money she can carry out.
If you can afford to give away such a large cash prize, the vault could
contain, say, $100,000 in one-dollar and five-dollar bills (with the winner
ending up with perhaps $5,000 to $10,000, depending upon your time limit).
Note that although the vault contains $100,000, thats not the amount youd
actually be giving away.
Variation:
Small budget?
How about the winner taking all she can from a vault containing one million
(or 100,000) nickels?
You can expect the total prize to be in the hundreds of dollars, rather than in
the thousands.

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TELEPHONE TOTAL
WNUE found a way to involve each listener individually.
Each hour, prizes were awarded to listeners whose phone numbers added up
to a certain total.
Example: 222-5555 could be a winner if the hours total was 26.
A very simple contest thats very personal.
After all, everyone has their own phone number.

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TELEPHONE: CALLING ALL PAY PHONES

I did this one years ago to promote a new morning show, and the response
was tremendous.
Its a typical cash call promotion wherein the person answering the phone
has to respond with a certain phrase, but all calls are made to public pay
phones on city streets, in bowling alleys, everywhere.
If they answer with, I always listen to RADIO X, they win a cash prize of
perhaps $100.
Its lots of fun for your audience, because nobody knows who youre going
to get on the other end of the line.

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TELL US WHAT TO PLAY

WLIR asked its listeners to submit suggestions for music sets.
Listeners whose suggestions were used were awarded t-shirts.
This one is simple but good in that all listeners assume they can program
music better than the station anyway.
Hint: Create special shirts that say, RADIO X Music Director.

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TENNIS TOURNAMENT
This one is self-explanatory.
Go all the way with it a large, full scale, area-wide tournament open to all
players.
Set up different categories by age, gender, skill, singles, doubles, etc., with
cash prizes going to all finals winners and consolation prizes to the other
losing finalists and semi-finalists.
Each contestant pays $10 to enter.
The station provides 25 sodas and 50 hotdogs, and all proceeds go to
charity.
Admission is free.
Print up a tournament program and have the charitable organization sell
advertising in it to local merchants.
You provide lots of publicity, have your personalities enter and emcee the
event, award trophies, and give on-the-spot reports from the scene of the
finals.
Remember, there are loads of avid tennis players everywhere.

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THANKSGIVING: GOLDEN TURKEY AWARD

KFREs Mike Webb did this one for years.
During the month of November, listeners search their own record collections
and submit their entries for the biggest recorded turkey of them all i.e.,
the worst recorded song ever.
All during the month, a couple of entries are played during each days show,
and listeners call in to vote for which one is worse.
The day before Thanksgiving, the Top 20 Turkey Countdown is played.
The persons whose entries make the Top 20 receive a t-shirt.
Hint:
During the month when people call in to comment on the individual entries,
record and save the best comments.
File them according to the song being critiqued and play them back when
you count down the Top 20.

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THANKSGIVING:
SPEND THANKSGIVING ON THE MAYFLOWER
Your lucky winner gets a full Thanksgiving dinner, served on a beautifully
appointed dinner table by professional waiters.
The dinner takes place on a Mayflower moving van.
Hint:
Someone needs to provide the food, the furniture, the table settings, etc.
Each of those someones can be a paid sponsor.

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THANKSGIVING PING PONG DROP

This works along the same lines as our Ping Pong Drop (Page 217), but this
time some of the balls have nothing imprinted, while others have a picture of
a turkey imprinted.
The turkey ping pong balls are redeemable for free turkeys.

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THEMES LIKE OLD TIMES

WLVQ put together a montage of musical themes from old television shows.
The first contestant to identify all 16 tunes won a complete home
entertainment system.

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TIRES: SPARE TIRE COVERS

These are more expensive than bumper stickers (!), but if you custom-make
some attractive covers for the spare tires that are mounted on the backs of
jeeps, pickups, SUVs, etc., your call letters will make an extra special
impression on the motoring public.
You might even work out some kind of a deal with a local dealer (or as many
various dealers as you can) to automatically include the cover with the
purchase of a vehicle.

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TOLL-FREE MORNINGS
If local commuters have to cross a toll bridge or drive along a toll road each
day, you can win enormous goodwill and hopefully some new, thankful
listeners by arranging to pay for their tolls one morning.
The toll booths are equipped to automatically count the cars that pass
through, so all you have to do is get the city or county to agree to let you
write them a check to cover all the cars that passed through during the
morning rush hour.
In exchange for your helping them speed the cars through much faster (no
need for them to make change), the toll collectors hand out cards saying
something like, Your toll this morning was paid for by RADIO X, the
(City) radio station that always makes your day a little bit better.

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TOP 100 SONGS OF ALL TIME

You devise the manner in which the top 100 songs are chosen, with each
song being assigned a position from 1 to 100.
Songs are played sporadically over a period of several days, in random order.
The first listener to mail or bring to the station a complete list of the 100
songs in order wins a big cash prize.

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TOYS FOR TOTS CONCERTS

Your station sponsors a concert or series of concerts, with the price of
admission being a new, non-toxic, safe toy.

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TRACTOR RACE
If youre in a heavy agricultural area, you can stage the tractor race at a local
speedway.
To really get your listeners involved, have them provide the tractors one
for each jock (including all your jocks, so theres enough for a good race).
Each jock can select his own tractor donor from on-air calls during his own
airshift.
Callers can describe their tractors, but jocks cant see any of them until after
theyve made this choices. In fact, you might want to include a rule
prohibiting the callers from even telling how old their tractors are which
would mean one or two jocks might end up with real clunkers.
Once the vehicles are chosen (and nicknamed for easy identification), qualify
other listeners who predict who will win the race.
The owner of the winning tractor wins a big prize, and the winner(s)
through a drawing from correctly guessing qualifiers get prizes too.
All the other competing tractor donors receive nice prizes for donating the
vehicles.
As an added twist, you can take entries predicting the exact time of the
winning tractor (around, say, a quarter-mile track).
Note: Be sure to check with your experts regarding insurance.

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T-SHIRT MONEY
Lots of stations give away t-shirts.
In addition to being a nice prize, however, the goal should be to increase the
stations visibility among the public.
Distribute lots of t-shirts in the months prior to a ratings period, making an
effort to get those shirts to all types of listeners (not just, say, teenagers).
Then during the ratings period, have station spotters patrolling the city and
giving away $20, $50 and $100 bills to people wearing the shirts.
Each day have unannounced (that is, with no prior fanfare) visits to various
parts of the city, but also promote a particular business area where your
spotter will visit and promise a $100 bill to whoever your spotter spots
first.
A person wearing your shirt in effect is saying, I listen to RADIO X;
RADIO X is my station.
With lots of people walking around wearing your shirts especially
concentrated in a single, high-traffic area the implied message will be that
nearly everyone seems to listen to Radio X.

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TREASURE HUNT
No, not the kind with cleverly worded rhyming clues.
Legends of buried treasure abound all over the world treasure buried by
pirates, criminals, early inhabitants, etc.
You choose your own method of selecting half a dozen listeners to
accompany a couple of staff members to the treasure area youve chosen.
The station arranges & pays for group travel, lodging, food, and search
equipment.
You should line up an expert on the areas local history to guide you.
Send back daily on-air reports.
Have legal documents drawn up, stating who gets to keep any treasure found.
(The best way is for all winners to share equally, while the station receives...
nothing. Dont quibble; the odds are a million to one against finding anything
anyway.)
A quick Internet search will reveal lots of lists of suspected, rumored or
legendary buried treasures.

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TRIVIA CONTEST WITH SPONSOR TIE-IN

KING did this with a Star Trek trivia contest, but the type of trivia doesnt
matter.
The switch here is that all trivia questions & answers are available free at
sponsor locations (e.g., 7-11s, McDonalds, etc.).
Listeners pick up free copies of Questions & Answers and then listen for their
chance to win.
Youve got yourself a good audience participation/audience interest contest,
and your sponsors get increased in-store traffic.

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TRIVIA CONTEST: IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR

Heres a really ambitious one that requires a good budget and lots of research
and preparation.
A caller is selected each hour.
The caller selects the year that she is an expert on.
The years might be 1960 through 2000, for example.
The jock pulls out a set of five questions for that particular year.
The first question is pretty easy, but they get successively harder although
never extremely tough; a pretty knowledgeable person should be able to
score 5 out of 5.
The questions are about people & things that were highly prominent in that
year.
The first question is worth $10, the second is worth $20, and so on up to to
$50.
The contestant keeps going until she misses one or gets all five correct, and
she keeps all the money she has won (even after missing one).
Hint: Consult hit record charts, movie lists, TV lists, Academy Award lists,
sports lists, presidential elections, etc., for ideas for questions.

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TRIVIA: WORLD SERIES OF TRIVIA

WJON qualified contestants via daily trivia quizzes over a two-week period,
then drew seven of the names as finalists.
The big competition was held at a local shopping mall and broadcast live.
You have several options for contest rules; the best might be buzzer/light
combinations for contestants to hit after each question is read.
The first to hit the buzzer gets to answer.
Correct answers score points, incorrect answers lose points.
Have three or four levels of category difficulty, starting with the easiest and
moving to the hardest.
Easiest questions score 1 point; hardest score 4 points.
Ten questions per category; the person with the highest score at the end wins.

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UGLIEST BARTENDER CONTEST

Habitus of various local watering holes vote for their favorite ugly bartender
by way of a $1 donation at the bar, with proceeds going to charity.
To keep the competitive spirit alive among the various establishments, weekly
progress reports on the race can be given identifying the top three votegetters by name & establishment.
Large colorful displays places in bars around town will help keep your station
name to the fore.
Note:
If you give weekly progress reports, resist the temptation to broadcast them
in Morning Drive and instead broadcast them at peak Happy Hour time
say, 5:30PM each Friday.
This is to encourage bars all over town to keep you turned on, with lots of
customers handy to sample your station.

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UGLIEST CAR IN THE WORLD

Have listeners send in postcards or e-mails that begin with, My car is so
ugly that....
The best entry or entries win a Car Care Package: certificates for new tires,
paint job, car wash, in-dash CD player, etc.

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UGLIEST OFFICE IN (TOWN)

Invite listeners to send you photographic proof of why their offices deserve
to be known as the ugliest.
The winning ugly office receives $5,000 worth of remodeling from a local
design firm.
It wont be hard to line up such a firm, because after the contest is over all
entrants will receive letters of thanks plus special discount offers in case
theyd like to go ahead and remodel anyway.
(So youre generating solid leads for the design firm.)

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UGLY DOG CONTEST

WCOS had great success with this one.
The contest was held in the parking lot of the co-sponsoring shopping mall.
Trophies and t-shirts were awarded to the three winners in such categories as
Ugliest Dog and Most Talented Ugly Dog.
On-air promotions combined effectively with posters in the mall well in
advance of the contest.
Hint: Your rules should stress that all entrants must be vaccinated and held
by leash at all times.

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VALENTINE OF THE YEAR

Invite your listeners to send valentines to their sweethearts in care of the
station homemade valentines, that is.
Your panel of judges selects the winning valentine(s), which goes up on
billboards around the city.
Example: The billboard might feature a blow-up of the winning artwork &
message, plus an introduction: RADIO X Wants (City) To Know That
Mary Smith Is Bob Michelsons Favorite Valentine!

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VALENTINES DAY
Heres one thats cheap, fun, and a great way to become personally involved
with your audience.
Winners qualify via your standard phone-in.
Winners wish an early Happy Valentines Day to their own sweethearts.
Then on Valentines Dy, have station representatives personally deliver a box
of candy, a rose, and a card to each of the winners sweethearts.
In many ways its a perfect promotion: fun to listen to, easy to enter, and it
appeals to adults who might not ordinarily enter a radio contest.
And, of course, delivering gifts to businesses and offices all over the city cant
help but attract attention from your winners co-workers.

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VALENTINES DAY: WIN AT LOVE

Standard holiday giveaway of flowers, candy, dinners, etc., only the cue to
call in and win is any song you play during the day that contains the word
love in the title.
Make it a little easier than usual and award prizes to the first three callers each
time.

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VALENTINES DAY IS FOR LOVERS

Contestants are asked to identify specific pairs of great lovers in history
some of which are greater than others.
Examples:
Antony and ________
Romeo and ________
Sonny and ________
Bonnie and ________

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VALENTINES DAY PRIZES

Love seats
Love birds
Love beads
Weekends for two at local plush hotel
Matching tattoos
Free prenuptial agreement

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VISITS: WIN A VISIT FROM A FRIEND

The prize here consists of the station flying out a friend for an all-expense
paid visit with the winner in your city.
Includes airfare, tickets to local plays and concerts, free dinners at fine
restaurants, hotel stay if theres not enough room at the winners home.
Hint: Make sure you allow at least two persons flown in per winner, so that
a spouse can accompany the winners choice, if desired.
This can be adapted to various holidays, including Mothers Day (fly Mom &
Dad into town), Fathers Day, Christmas (for a holiday reunion fly in up
to four people), etc.

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WASHINGTONS BIRTHDAY: LITTLE WHITE LIES

WHK gave cherry pies to winners who caught station personalities telling
little white lies.
Sample lies might be:
Giving incorrect station frequency
Identifying a jock by the wrong first name
Mis-identifying local landmarks
Incorrectly identifying song titles or artists, etc.
You might also throw in a pre-1964 Washington quarter. Depending upon the
price of silver at the time, undoubtedly it would be a decent cash bonus
certainly a lot more than 25 worth.

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WEATHER: GUEST WEATHER FORECASTER OF THE DAY

Once youre in the middle of Summer or Winter, the weather forecasts can
become pretty predictable, and jocks quickly run out of original descriptions.
Have your listeners submit their own descriptions e.g., Its so hot
that... or Todays a good day for....
If you air a contestants entry during a forecast, the contestant wins a prize.
Hint:
Dont make them call in to identify their phrase.
Youll run the risk of duplication, confusion, and bad feelings.
Hint:
Your prizes should reflect the weather:
Winter electric blankets, coffee makers, etc.
Summer picnic coolers, cases of soda, etc.

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WEEKEND: SURPRISE WEEKEND

This originated as a party gimmick for high society party givers, but you can
adapt it for your own use.
Qualifying contestants get to attend a big party put on by the station,
complete with food, beverage, and entertainment.
All contestants are instructed to bring packed suitcases to the party.
Its explained that a drawing will be held to select one (or more, depending
upon your budget) couple who will be driven by limousine to the airport and
flown to a surprise weekend vacation spot, with all expenses paid by the
station.
The destination isnt announced until the winning couple(s) names are
announced.
This could be a monthly event.

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WHATS YOUR LINE

This ones simple.
The jock reads a single line from a hit song to the telephone contestant, and
the contestant has to identify the song by its correct title.

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WHEELBARROW RACE
Your air personalities do the racing, pushing wheelbarrows along a
predetermined course.
You can choose from an infinite number of items to fill the wheelbarrows:
Each one might carry a player from a professional football team....
Or the jocks weight in hit CDs (which the winner will receive)....
Or the jocks weight in silver dollars (again, to be awarded to the lucky
listener)....

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WHISTLE A HAPPY TUNE

To win, all a caller has to do is whistle a song any song well enough for
you to recognize it.
This should be lots of fun, given the fact that many of your contestants will
react to the pressure by laughing when they should be whistling.

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WIN YOUR HEIGHT (OR WEIGHT) IN....

CDs
Pennies
Nickels
Quarters
Dimes
Half dollars
Silver dollars
Groceries
Books
Hamburgers
Marshmallows
M&Ms

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WINTER: FIRST SNOW OF THE SEASON

When autumn definitely has hit your town the weather suddenly turning
chilly and the days becoming shorter have your listeners send in postcards
guessing the day & time of the years first snowfall (as measured at a
specified location e.g., your radio station studio).
Allow a couple of weeks for entries.
The person coming closest to the actual day & time wins some winteroriented prize (e.g., ice skates, toboggan, snowmobile, a weeks vacation in a
warmer climate).

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
308

by Dan ODay
WINTER: RADIO X WARMS UP YOUR MORNING

If you have a station promotion vehicle, you can do what WLS did:
Send the vehicle out all over the city on a cold winter morning and give away
mugs of hot chocolate in a personalized Morning Jock mug.

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
309

by Dan ODay
WINTER: THE SOUNDS OF WINTER

Listeners are required to identify certain specific sounds of winter in order
to win prizes.
Examples:
Shoveling snow
Snow plow
Ice skating
Sledding
Snow falling (!)
Icicle melting
Snowball fight
Child removing wet winter clothing after playing outside
Walking on thin, crackling ice

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
310

by Dan ODay
WINTER FREEBIE
Ice scrapers (for car windshields), prominently featuring the station name &
frequency and advising people to listen to the station for the latest weather
conditions.

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
311

by Dan ODay
WINTER PRIZE
Free snow shoveling for the entire winter!
Hire someone dependable to shovel off the winners driveway and sidewalks
once a day for every day that it snows.
Youll be amazed at how many people would love to win that prize!

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
312

by Dan ODay
WINTER PRIZE (2)

Why not welcome the beginning of winter with a contest prize that would be
prized by all: pairs of longjohns.
For a terrific prize, give away longjohns customized with your station name!

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
313

by Dan ODay
WINTER SAFETY TIPS

WHAS gave away many items to help survive the long, cold winter.
Each hour theyd give a winter safety tip (e.g., driving on icy roads, shoveling
snow, ice skating, preventing flu).
Sometime thereafter the jock would award a prize to the first caller to repeat
the hours safety tip.

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
314

by Dan ODay
WONDERFUL WIENER CART

Heres a creative charity fundraiser from WRKO.
During lunch hour, they had station personalities and various celebrities
selling a hotdog & a Coke for $1 from a downtown hotdog cart.
The cart was there all summer long, spreading goodwill and call letter
identification while raising money for a good cause.
Hint:
With a light, fun-oriented promotion like this, the best type of cause often is
children-related handicapped, retarded, underprivileged.
Most people want to help kids, and if you make it painless enough for them
to do so, theyll be grateful.

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
315

by Dan ODay
(JOCK) WORKS FOR YOU

This one was done by Mike Rivers of KYA; it was a regular feature called
Rivers Works For You.
People sent in postcards and each month he held a drawing and the
winners received a day off from work while Mike substituted for them.
Substitute jobs included working behind the counter at Burger King and
filling in for a high school principal.
Before embarking on a new job, he invited listeners to phone in tips for
making the best of his new profession and, when possible (as with the
Burger King job), he invited listeners to come watch him work.

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
316

by Dan ODay
WORLD CUP or WORLD SERIES VIEWING PARTY

See Super Bowl Viewing Party for details.

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
317

by Dan ODay
(CREATE THE) WORLDS BIGGEST...

Sandwich
Hoagie
Cake
Taco
Hotdog
Root Beer Float
Pie
Pot Pie
Pizza
Burrito
Mulligan Stew
Ice-Cream Sundae
Quiche
Omelette
Bagel & Cream Cheese

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
318

by Dan ODay
YACHT PARTY
Your jocks and your listeners go on a cruise, complete with sumptuous food,
live music & entertainment.

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
319

by Dan ODay
PROMOTION JUMP-START WORKSHEET

What is the primary incentive for a listener to participate?
Lets call this promotion:
Which local celebrities can we involve?
Possible Sponsors:
1. ________________________________________________________
(____________________________ will contact Sponsor #1.)
2. ________________________________________________________
3. ________________________________________________________
Tag Line For On-Air Promos:
Our First Three Steps:

1. ________________________________________________________
2. ________________________________________________________
3. ________________________________________________________
Three Ways We Can Make This Promotion More Exciting:
1. ________________________________________________________
2. ________________________________________________________
3. ________________________________________________________

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
320

by Dan ODay
PROMOTION JUMP-START WORKSHEET

(Completed Sample)
(ORIGINAL: Thanksgiving Ping Pong Drop)
What is the primary incentive for a listener to participate? Win free stuff, + fun!
Lets call this promotion: Turkeys From Heaven
Which local celebrities can we involve? TV sportscaster to do play-by-play of the
dropping ping pong balls
Possible Sponsors:
1. Eds Supermarkets (providing the turkeys)
(Salesperson #1 will contact Sponsor #1.)
2. Maries Ice Cream Shoppe (some balls will be imprinted with free ice cream
cone coupon)
3. Big Als Auto Dealership (hold the event on his property?)
Tag Line For On-Air Promos: Radio X reminds you to...look to the skies!
Our First Three Steps:
1. Contact helicopter rental service
2. Check with our insurance carrier
3. Select specific locale for the ping pong drop
Three Ways We Can Make This Promotion More Exciting:
1. Controversy? (Make it sound like well be dropping real turkeys?)
2. Live interviews with excited winners moments after catching one?
3. Live video streaming of event on our website people scrambling, balls
dropping....

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
321

by Dan ODay
OTHER RESOURCES
TACTICAL RADIO PROMOTIONS by Dan Garfinkel:

http://www.danoday.com/tactical
STREET-LEVEL MARKETING by Paige Nienaber:

http://www.danoday.com/street
THE WHOLE O CATALOGUE

Select Promotions from the List All drop menu, and youll find lots of
valuable resources:
http://www.danoday.com/catalog
THE DAN ODAY RADIO PROGRAMMING LETTER (free)

http://www.danoday.com/free
THE DAN ODAY RADIO ADVERTISING LETTER (free)

http://www.danoday.com/free

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
322
323
by Dan ODay
INDEX
How You Can Legally Use This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Preface .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
National Aardvark Week . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Abet & Aid Punsters Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Academy Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Academy Awards: Oscar Predictions . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Academy Awards: Oscar Predictions (2) . . . . . . . . . . . .
Adopt A Cat Month . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Adopt-A-Dog Month . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Advertising: Free Business Window Advertising . . . . . . . . .
Albums: The Great Album Rush . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Amusement Park: Take Over An Amusement Park . . . . . . .
Johnny Appleseeds Birthday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
April Fools Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
April Fools Day (2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
April Fools Day (3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
April Fools Day: Were Not Foolin! . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Arm Wrestling Contest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Astrology: The Only Party Where No One Asks, Whats Your Sign?
First Atomic Explosion, Anniversary . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Auction: T-Shirt Auction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Bagel Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Balloons: Direct Mail Balloons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Band: The Radio X Imaginary Lonely Hearts Club Band . . . . .
Barbecue: National Barbecue Month . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Barbecue: Win A Station Barbecue In Your Own Backyard . . . .

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
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13
14
15
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17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
324
by Dan ODay
Baseball: Home Run Inning . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Baseball: Spring Training Trips . . . . . . . . . . .
Basketball: How Many Free Throws? . . . . . . . . .
Bathtub Race . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Bathtub Regatta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Be Kind To Animals Week . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Beach Patrol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Beat The Bomb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Bed Race
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Beer Can Smashing Contest . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Best Things In Life Are Free . . . . . . . . . .
Bingo: Radio Bingo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Bingo: Superstars Bingo . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Bingo Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Birthday Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Blackjack: Computer Blackjack . . . . . . . . . . .
Blackjack: Radio Blackjack . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Blame Someone Else Day . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Block Party: Win A Block Party . . . . . . . . . . .
Boat: The Radio X Love Boat . . . . . . . . . . . .
Boss: National Boss Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Bumper Stickers With A Twist . . . . . . . . . . .
Call Letters: The Missing Call Letter . . . . . . . . .
Canned Goods: Another Radio X (Pittsburgh) Can Concert
Cars: The Autographmobile . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Cars: A Free Ride From Radio X . . . . . . . . . .
Cars: Guess The Mileage, Win The Car . . . . . . . .
Cars: Mystery Car . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Cars: Speedometer Testing Station . . . . . . . . . .
2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
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60
61
325
by Dan ODay
Cash Flasher . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Cash Hours . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Christmas: Christmas At Home . . . . . .
Christmas Prizes . . . . . . . . . . . .
Christmas Spirit Awards . . . . . . . . .
Christmas Sponsor Promotion . . . . . . .
Christmas Swap Shop . . . . . . . . . .
Christmas: The Radio X Christmas Tree Lights
Christmas Wishes . . . . . . . . . . . .
Christmas: The Automatic Santa . . . . . .
Christmas: A Childrens Christmas . . . . .
Christmas: A Family Christmas . . . . . .
Christmas: Merry Christmas For Cash . . . .
Circus .
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Circus: Play-By-Play . . . . . . . . . . .
Coconuts: Creative Coconut Contest . . . .
Columbus Day . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Complete The Song . . . . . . . . . . .
Computer: The Music Computer . . . . . .
Computer: The Prize Computer . . . . . .
Concert Hall Seating Guide . . . . . . . .
Cookbook: Radio Xs (City) Cookbook . . .
Cooking Carnival . . . . . . . . . . . .
Cook-Off: Local Food Specialty Cook-Off . .
Count The Minutes . . . . . . . . . . .
Count The Songs . . . . . . . . . . . .
Count The Songs (Alternate Version) . . . .
Crab Races . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
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326
by Dan ODay
Crossword Puzzle . . . . . . . . . . .
Day Off With Pay . . . . . . . . . . .
Diamond Mine . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dinner In A Parking Lot . . . . . . . .
Direct Mailing Of Personalized Checks . .
Direct Mailing Of Sweepstakes Numbers
Dollars: The Super Dollar . . . . . . . .
Double Or Nothing . . . . . . . . . .
Drag Race . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Drag Race: In Drag . . . . . . . . . .
Diet: Radio X Drops A Ton . . . . . . .
Dream Machine . . . . . . . . . . .
The Easiest Contest In The World . . . .
Easter: Blind Childrens Easter Egg Hunt .
Easter Bunnies . . . . . . . . . . . .
Easter Egg Fight . . . . . . . . . . .
Easter Egg Hunt In A Shopping Mall . .
Easter Omelettes . . . . . . . . . . .
Egg Drop
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Egg Drop #2 . . . . . . . . . . . .
Egg Frying Contest . . . . . . . . . .
Elections: Political Prognosticator . . . .
Elections: Post-Election Advertising Clean-Up
Entertainment Guide . . . . . . . . .
Experts: The Radio X Panel Of Experts . .
Famous Faces . . . . . . . . . . . .
Fathers Day: Fathers On-The-Air . . . .
Fathers Day: Name That Dad . . . . . .
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2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
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327
by Dan ODay
Fathers Day: Wives On-The-Air . . . . . . .

Fifty Per Cent Off Fair . . . . . . . . . . .
Fishing: The $25,000 Fish . . . . . . . . .
Fishing Tournament . . . . . . . . . . . .
Fm Means Free Miles . . . . . . . . . . .
Football: Grudge Bets . . . . . . . . . . .
Football Handicapper . . . . . . . . . . .
Football Predictions: Males Vs. Female . . . .
Football Widows . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4th Of July: American Trivia . . . . . . . .
4th Of July Fireworks Simulcast . . . . . . .
From Sea To Shining Sea . . . . . . . . .
Garage Sale: Drive-In Garage Sale . . . . . .
Garage Sale: Worlds Largest Indoor Garage Sale
Garbage: Live Garbage Reporter . . . . . . .
Gold: Free Gold . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Gold: Own Part Of A Gold Mine . . . . . . .
Golf: Winter Gold Tournament . . . . . . .
Grandparents Day . . . . . . . . . . . .
Groceries: The Great Grocery Giveaway . . . .
Groceries: The Great Grocery Grab . . . . . .
Grouch Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Groundhogs Day . . . . . . . . . . . .
Groundhogs Day Parade . . . . . . . . .
Groundhogs Day Prize . . . . . . . . . .
Groundhogs Day: The Shadow Knows . . . .
Halloween: Bloodmobile . . . . . . . . . .
Halloween: Haunted House . . . . . . . . .
Halloween: My Scariest Moment . . . . . . .
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2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
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328
by Dan ODay
Halloween Party For Kids . . . . . . . . . .

Halloween Visits . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Happy Hours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Health Fair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
High-Low . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Home Show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Horse Race: Human Horse Race . . . . . . . .
How Do You Spell Music? . . . . . . . . . .
Humor Month . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I Love You (City) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I Love You (City) Month . . . . . . . . . . .
Income Tax: Free Income Tax Service . . . . .
Income Taxes: I.R.S. Spells Dollars . . . . . . .
Income Taxes: Last-Minute Income Tax Returners .
The Ive Never Won Anything In My Life Contest
Jail: Get Me Out Of Jail . . . . . . . . . . .
Job: I Love My Job Because.... . . . . . . . . .
Joke-Telling Championships . . . . . . . . . .
Casey Jones Birthday . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jukebox
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Kite Fly In The Park . . . . . . . . . . . .
K-Tel Style Promo Spot . . . . . . . . . . .
Lets Make A Deal . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Listener Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Maps: Road Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Marbles Tournament . . . . . . . . . . . .
Marching Band: The Radio X Marching Band . . .
Mascot: The Secret Mascot . . . . . . . . . .
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All Rights Reserved
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329
by Dan ODay
Mayor: Have The Mayor Co-Host Your Show . . . . . . .

Mayor: If The Mayor Has Co-Hosted The Competitions Show...
Miniature Golf Tournament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Missing Beatles Song . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mobile Sea Cruiser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Radio X Money Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Money Meltdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Money Mouth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Money Tube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mothers Day: Moms On-The-Air . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mothers Day: Name That Mom . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mother-In-Law Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Movies: Cheap Monday Night Movies . . . . . . . . . . .
Movies: Midnight Movies For Charity . . . . . . . . . . .
Movies: Morning Movie Premiere . . . . . . . . . . . .
Movie Extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mug Your Boss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Music Quiz: Multi-Step Music Quiz . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mystery House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mystery Whisperer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mystery: Radio Mystery Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . .
Name That Song . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
New Years Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
On Tour With (Group) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
One-Armed Bandit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Oldies: Radio X Becomes A Thing Of The Past . . . . . . .
Oldies: Your Oldies But Goodies Contest . . . . . . . . . .
Olympics: The Radio X Olympics . . . . . . . . . . . .
Outrageous: The Most Outrageous Contest . . . . . . . . .
2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
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by Dan ODay
Oyster Shucking Contest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Pardon Anniversary: I Beg Your Pardon . . . . . . . . . .
Parking: Free Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Pets: Radio X Feeds Your Furry Friends . . . . . . . . . .
Photo Contest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Picnic: The Hidden Picnic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Picnic Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Pinball Tournament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ping Pong Drop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Play Em Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Pop Off .
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Popcorn Poppin Month . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Pothole Patrol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The Price Is Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Prize Truck (By Zip Codes) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Prom Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Public Relations Week . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CDs: Imaginary Music Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CDs: Record Run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Rent: Free Rent (Or Mortgage) Payments . . . . . . . . .
Repeat: We Never Repeat Ourselves, We Never Repeat Ourselves
River Clean-Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Rodeo: Radio Rodeo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
St. Patricks Day: Green Carnations . . . . . . . . . . .
St. Patricks Day: Trip To Ireland . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sandwich: The Worlds Biggest Sandwich (Or Pizza, Etc.) . . .
Say When . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
School: Teacher Salutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
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331
by Dan ODay
Scrabble: Radio Scrabble . . . . . . . . . .

Scrambled Call Letters . . . . . . . . . . .
Scrambled Commercials . . . . . . . . . .
Scrambled Songs . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Secret Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Secret Word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Secretarys Day . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Serial Number High/Low . . . . . . . . . .
Shrimp Fundraiser . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sister City: Annex A Sister City . . . . . . .
Ski: Free (Or Cheap) Ski Bus . . . . . . . .
Ski Corrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sky Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Smile Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Smokeout: The Great American Smokeout . . .
Snake Races . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Someone Special . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sports Cards (Baseball, Football, Basketball, Etc.)
Spring: First Day Of Spring . . . . . . . . .
Spring: Radio X Welcomes Spring . . . . . .
Steak: Station Steak-Out . . . . . . . . . .
Stock: Take Stock In (City) . . . . . . . . .
Stone Skipping Tournament . . . . . . . .
Strike: Have Your Star DJ Go On Strike . . . .
Summer: The First Really Official Day Of Summer
Summer: How Many Watermelon Seeds? . . .
Summer: Radio X Cools Off Your Summer . .
Summer: Sounds Of Summer . . . . . . . .
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2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
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by Dan ODay
Summer Prize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Summer Relief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Summer Safety Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sundae: The Worlds Largest Ice Cream Sundae . .
Super Bowl Viewing Party . . . . . . . . . . .
Super Bowl Viewing Party (Again) . . . . . . . .
Survival Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Take The Money And Run . . . . . . . . . . .
Telephone Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Telephone: Calling All Pay Phones . . . . . . . .
Tell Us What To Play . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Tennis Tournament . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Thanksgiving: Golden Turkey Award . . . . . . .
Thanksgiving: Spend Thanksgiving On The Mayflower
Thanksgiving Ping Pong Drop . . . . . . . . . .
Themes Like Old Times . . . . . . . . . . . .
Tires: Spare Tire Covers . . . . . . . . . . . .
Toll-Free Mornings . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Top 100 Songs Of All Time . . . . . . . . . . .
Toys For Tots Concerts . . . . . . . . . . . .
Tractor Race . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
T-Shirt Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Treasure Hunt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Trivia Contest With Sponsor Tie-In . . . . . . . .
Trivia Contest: It Was A Very Good Year . . . . .
Trivia: World Series Of Trivia . . . . . . . . . .
Ugliest Bartender Contest . . . . . . . . . . .
Ugliest Car In The World . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ugliest Office In (Town) . . . . . . . . . . . .
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2007 by Dan ODay
All Rights Reserved
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333
by Dan ODay
Ugly Dog Contest . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Valentine Of The Year . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Valentines Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Valentines Day: Win At Love . . . . . . . . . .
Valentines Day Is For Lovers . . . . . . . . . .
Valentines Day Prizes . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Visits: Win A Visit From A Friend . . . . . . . .
Washingtons Birthday: Little White Lies . . . . . .
Weather: Guest Weather Forecaster Of The Day . . .
Weekend: Surprise Weekend . . . . . . . . . .
Whats Your Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Wheelbarrow Race . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Whistle A Happy Tune . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Win Your Height (Or Weight) In.... . . . . . . . .
Winter: First Snow Of The Season . . . . . . . .
Winter: Radio X Warms Up Your Morning . . . . .
Winter: The Sounds Of Winter . . . . . . . . . .
Winter Freebie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Winter Prize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Winter Prize (2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Winter Safety Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Wonderful Wiener Cart . . . . . . . . . . . .
(Jock) Works For You . . . . . . . . . . . . .
World Cup Or World Series Viewing Party . . . . .
(Create The) Worlds Biggest... . . . . . . . . .
Yacht Party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Promotion Jump-Start Worksheet . . . . . . . .
Promotion Jump-Start Worksheet (Completed Sample)
Other Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Oday Contests

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Oday Contests

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2007 by Dan ODay

All Rights Reserved

GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

HOW YOU CAN LEGALLY

Please do not skip over the following details.

2007 by Dan ODay

GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

Printing individual pages for staff members to use at promotion

Printing any portion of this book and distributing it to any other

2007 by Dan ODay

GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

Printing any portion of this book and distributing it to another property

2007 by Dan ODay

GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

Remember your worksheet on Page 320!

GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

Remember your worksheet on Page 320!

GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

Websites, E-Mail, Texting....

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GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

* NATIONAL AARDVARK WEEK (March)

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GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

* ABET & AID PUNSTERS DAY (November)

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GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

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GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

ACADEMY AWARDS: OSCAR PREDICTIONS

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GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

ACADEMY AWARDS: OSCAR PREDICTIONS (2)

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GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

* ADOPT A CAT MONTH (June)

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GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

* ADOPT-A-DOG MONTH (October)

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GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

ADVERTISING: FREE BUSINESS WINDOW ADVERTISING

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GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

ALBUMS: THE GREAT ALBUM RUSH

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GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

AMUSEMENT PARK: TAKE OVER AN AMUSEMENT PARK

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GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

JOHNNY APPLESEEDS BIRTHDAY (September 26)

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GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

APRIL FOOLS DAY (April 1)

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GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

APRIL FOOLS DAY (2)

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GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

APRIL FOOLS DAY (3)

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GREAT RADIO PROMOTIONS & CONTESTS

APRIL FOOLS DAY: WERE NOT FOOLIN!

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