Happy Friday, everyone!
This week's poll question comes from a client of mine, who asks, "Would you mind reaching out to your stations on ways they have given away a car? We are working with [a local dealership] on giving away a Chevy Impala. The sales plan is the easy part, the hard part if making the promotion new and exciting. Last time we did remotes, had the truck parked at each sponsor's business for registration. This year thinking of making it a caller registration where the listeners have to answer questions about the business or something."
So here is this week's poll question:
Has your radio station ever done a car or truck giveaway? If so, how did you make it a fun and exciting promotion?
As always, thank you for your replies - look forward to reading them!
A station I used to own and manage gave away a '66 classic T Bird about 10 years ago. It was a huge promotion. We found an old car at a junkyard and had it crushed into a cube. We towed the cube to participating sponsors where we did a 98 minute remote, asking people to come and guess what kind of car was on our trailer. Those who guessed correctly would be eligible for a Father's Day drawing to win the T-Bird, which also accompanied us to all the remotes. Well, no one could guess what kind of car we had crushed (they did too good a job, no one could possibly guess). So a week or so before Father's Day we started giving clues on the air as to what kind of car it was, and thus ended up with a dozen or so correct guesses. On Father's Day we did a giant broadcast at the Vigo County (Terre Haute, IN) Fairgrounds, giving keys to all the people who were eligible to win. The person with the key to start the T-Bird won the car. It made TV headlines, etc. The cost of the promotion, including the purchase of the classic T bird was about $12,000. Our revenue from sponsors was over $35,000. The promotional value was priceless. Note: The winner of the car was a single mom with kids who was thrilled because she didn't have a car. I told her that the T-Bird was barely street legal, and not meant to be used as a passenger vehicle, but she loaded the kids in and drove away any way. That part of the promotion didn't go as intended. Hope she sold the car to someone who would baby it, but never found out what happened to it.
Very cool promotion!
We do a fun car giveaway every summer.... Since we're an 80's station... we do The Retro Ride Giveaway! (www.RetroRideGiveaway.com)
This year it is a classic 1987 Pontiac Firebird. We have several ways to sign up, but the majority of the registrations are done online now. We use the site WinThisOnline.com (I know the owner.... it is free for radio stations to use)
This is an EASY way to get a list (rather than digging through a registration box and typing that info into a computer.... we let the listener type the info in for us)
We select a few qualifiers each week then do a party at the end of the summer. This year we will have 97 qualifiers (we just launched a new signal in Sioux City, Iowa at 97.1)
We give away 97 prizes with the car as the grand prize... everyone is welcome to come to the party (even if they didn't qualify) and sign up for door prizes. As we give away the prizes, we take anything that was not claimed and use it as a door prize.
The last two years the car was given away as a door prize! The qualifier was not there, so it was given away at the end as a door prize!
It is a fun promotion!
John Small
SunnyRadio.com
We are currently getting ready to wrap up a car promotion on our Top 40 station, it's called "Exploring for Cash". We are going to give away a 2015 Ford Explorer OR $1000 cash to one lucky winner! Listeners are qualified via on-air and on-sight contests at smaller prize sponsor locations during an 8 week period, culminating in a give-away party at the Signature Sponsor’s (car dealership) location. An “Ultimate Qualifier” will choose one of 100 mystery envelopes that contain either $1,000 cash (99 envelopes) or a Ford Explorer (1 envelope)! This is an insurance policy based promotion but sounds huge on the air and listeners love it!
stations that I have been involved with have done a number of car giveaways over the years.
Hands on a Honda was to qualify listeners at differing locations putting a Honda Civic at each location for a certain amount of time. Then, qualifiers at the final event all put one hand on the car, last one still touching wins(we gave a potty break like once every 3 hours or so).
How Many Ounces? A regional beverage distributor co sponsored with a dealership for a promotion at a county fair to give away a pickup with a bed of drinks. We did only non-alcoholic drinks. Packed lots of ice mixed with cases and cases of different types of drinks and as many different sizes of containers as possible. Whoever guessed the closest to how many ounces of beverages were in the bed of the truck with out going over wins. Same idea with ping pong balls and balloons inside a vehicle (beware that balloons with shrink over time especially in heat).
Get a bit more modern by qualifying through texts and have sponsors messages or offers on the reply to the registration.
Fix up that Junker! Get businesses (including some from outside the retail sector) to help build a car from wrecking yard to show condition. Pick a vehicle that fits the format, we did a muscle car for a classic rock audience. This is a time eater to be sure all the parts are in place prior to kicking off the promotion. Have listeners help pick out the color to have it painted etc. Listeners can come see the vehicle for a week at a time at each sponsors location during a (you determine the length of time i.e. one week). listeners can register at these sponsor location and see the progress of the vehicle. Of course body shop, paint shop, parts store come to mind, but don't limit yourself. Alcohol store could be the first location with a don't drink and drive message and they sponsor some safety devices to be installed at a later date. A furniture store sponsoring the seats, appliance store for new A/C. However this can take a lot of time to fill out the check list of what that particular vehicle needs. You could also do this with a used car trade in to save some steps.
Also, it is great to have the station branding on the vehicle, but not after you give it away. If they are not courteous drivers you don't want what the public sees as your "station vehicle" cutting people off
One thought I had .. depending on how many sponsors are involved .. what if you did a theme like "Solve the Mystery" where each person had to visit each business for another clue that would eventually lead them to where the Key for the Vehicle is Hidden at the Car Dealership ? like , a treasure map and no step could be skipped .. perhaps needing the points on a compass -- and you would not reveal the final destination all along is the dealership where the key might be "hidden in plain sight" or ?
We have done a promotion on our Classic Rock station called "Heads or Tails" the last few years. It gets bigger every time we do it. Basically each day (or week depending on your prefered duration) we take 2 qualifiers on air. The next day they show up at the studio during the morning show. One of them calls heads or tails at the flip of a coin. The winner gets a prize, the loser has to have something done to them or perform a somewhat, or really, embarassing stunt of some sort (depends on how juicy you want to make it!).Heads - you get a brand new bed!Tails – we take a chainsaw to yours!Heads – Win a set of winter tires!Tails – we slash yours! Heads – Win haircuts for a year!Tails – we shave your head into a mohawk! You get the idea. The promotion has daily (or weekly) prize sponsors with the auto dealer being the title sponsor and the last stunt.The last day (or week) the qualifiers put up THIER VEHICLES. We do the big toss at the dealership's lot where the winner gets a new vehicle and the loser has theirs torn apart by a backhoe... 
We always invite the public to this last stunt and draws a HUGE crowd at the clients business. Oh... did I mention that we take videos on each coin toss/stunt and post on our site each day (or week). Web traffic to our site is off the charts during this promotion.
Hope that helps!
We had a Summer promotion where we "Gave Away The Boss's Car". Our owner had a used Chrysler Le Baron convertible that he was ready to part ways with. We had a large vinyl station logo made and placed on the front hood and two smaller logo's for the front doors. The winners had to agree to keep the logos on for one year.
To monetize the promotion we sold a Title Sponsorship (commercials, on-air recognitions, promotion banner with their logo and the host location of the three hour Grand Giveaway). We then had our phone sales department sell (33) 99 minute Sticker Stops and qualified 3 finalist per Stop. Our FM frequency is 99.5 so we wanted (99) total qualifiers. We then purchased (98) Chrysler Le Baron key blanks.
Then it was time for the big giveaway. Qualifiers were allowed to draw a key in the order they arrived. We had (90) show up, seven who didn't show and two who had schedule conflicts, but who called us and said they were planning on coming out later if the car had not already been won. We put all of the key blanks (we started with 89 key blanks) in a giant Fish Bowl along with the Winning Key. We covered up the fish bowl so the qualifiers couldn't see the keys when it was their turn to draw. We started the broadcast and had the first five qualifiers draw and try to start the car... no winners. Then 6 - 10 drew their keys and tried to start the car... no winner. After each set of qualifiers tried to start the car, we would find the winning key in the fish bowl, start the car, and drop the key back into the bowl so they knew there was a winning key in there.Then qualifiers 11-15, 16-20, 21.....50 tried to start the car - No winners! About this time qualifier 91 and 92 showed up from their kids soccer games so we added two more blank keys into the fish bowl. We continued on with the live broadcast... 51-55, 56-60...70...80...85 then 90. You guessed it, the last two too arrive (and who probably felt like they had no chance to win) were the last two left with two keys remaining. One blank... and one winning key. Qualifier #91 drew, and Yay, we had a winner!
No one left during the first 90 other attempts. Everyone hung around Plus every qualifier had two or three people with them. There were hundreds of people at the Title Sponsors location. The promotion generated a lot of excitement all summer long during the (33) 99 minute qualifying Sticker Stops; the contest promotion sounded huge on the air and the Grand Giveaway... it doesn't get any better than that - number 91 of 92 wins. Yes, it created a lot of revenue too. We knew that the first key drawn could have possibly been the winning key and the excitement would have been over as soon as it started. If needed we had a contingency plan if a winner was drawn within the first 10 qualifiers with a second (different) game ready to go with its own set of prizes.
We found that it doesn't have to be a new car for people to be excited. For most of the qualifiers, they wanted to win a convertible with our station logos on it. One lesson we learned afterwards was to sign up an auto body/paint sponsor. After a year when the winner peeled the logo's off of the car it took the paint with it. A new paint job would have been a nice addition to the grand prize.
Fun event and good money giving away "The Boss's Car"
Do you actually do the tails stunts?
this sounds like fun
I was wondering the same thing... you don't really chop up beds, slash tires, rip apart cars, and such... do you?? If so, how do you convince listeners to play the game? I wouldn't risk the stakes although it would be fun to see.
Absolutely! It's risk vs. reward. We have no trouble finding participants and our listeners love this promotion.
We did an exciting promotion with our local Toyota dealer, Findlay, to give away a Prius. The client wanted a huge event for the grand prize giveaway AND to build traffic at the dealership during the 3 month promotion. We did the usual register and listen for your name to get our grand prize qualifiers. At the GP event we played "Name the Findlay price"....finalists were paired up 6 at a time each with a dry erase board. We drove a new or used vehicle in front of them and each finalist had to 'name the Findlay price' of the vehicle on the dry erase board. Our morning show did a great job being Bob Barker/Drew Carey and describing the vehicle, playing with the finalists and creating a enjoyable atmosphere. The actual Findlay price was in a sealed envelope and was opened with much fanfare. Whomever was closest without going over was awarded a key to try to start the Prius. Once we announced on air that finalist would be playing the name the price game the dealer traffic increased considerably and they sold vehicles to a few our our finalists BEFORE the grand prize event.
