Radio Sales Café

I have the unique opportunity of launching a new radio station and I'm looking for some new and fun ideas for a promotional campaign/event plan for our station's launch. We are looking at a date in the beginning of September. We are in a relatively smaller market. We'd like this to be family friendly and community oriented type of event/ promotion. There is a large military base approx 30 minutes away from the town we have our main office/studio location which is a large part of our target demographic, especially military wives/ families and there are also several small to medium colleges and a moderate sized university. Our format is Lite AC with a mix from the 70's,80's,90's and newer music as well. Any ideas for an event and or promotion campaign??? We're looking for unique, fun and creative. THANKS!

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR FANTASTIC ADVENTURE! IF YOU LOVE IT, IT WILL BE SUCCESSFUL!
SOMETHING WE DID WHEN WE SWITCHED FORMATS, AND WE ARE ALSO IN A SMALLISH MARKET, WE ASKED EVERY BUSINESS WITH A MARQUEE, ELECTRONIC SIGN, ETC. THAT IF THEY WOULD PUT OUR DIAL POSITION ON THEIR SIGN THE DAY OF OUR SWITCH, WE WOULD GIVE THEM 10 FREE ADS WHENEVER THEY WANTED TO USE THEM...MOST CHOSE THAT DAY. . IT WORKED GREAT! EVERYWHERE PEOPLE DROVE THAT DAY THEY SAW 1O2.5 ON SIGNS EVERYWHERE IN THE AREA AND IF THEY WEREN'T ALREADY LISTENING, THEY SWITCHED OVER TO SEE WHAT ALL THE EXCITEMENT WAS ABOUT. WE TOLD THOSE BUSINESSES WHO HELPED US THAT THEY WERE OUR "CHARTER ADVERTISERS" AND WE WOULD ALWAYS GIVE THEM A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA WITH EACH SCHEDULE THEY BUY. THEY LOVED IT AND IT WORKED! GOOD LUCK AND CONGRATULATIONS!

Play one song for the first 24 hours. Since you're targeting a large military community, something like the Washington Post March could be good. It will drive people crazy and they will all tell their friends about the crazy new stations that plays only one sone.
This was done back in the 50s at KABL in San Francisco. At the 24th hour the announcer came on (They got Gregory Peck) to welcome them to the new Cable Radio.
I think they told the audience that a special announcement would come on at that time for several hours before they hit the switch. Everyone was listening.

This wouldn't work for your launch in September, but here's a very cheap promotion we pulled off in January, 1989, and it got an incredible amount of exposure by local media. This was a Ground Hog Day promotion, in which we gave away a real ground hog. Two weeks before Feb. 1st, we started running promos on the air and registering one lucky listener, per hour, for the giveaway. We put each registrant on the air to congratulate them on successfully registering for the giveaway, along with the question, "So, what are you going to do with a ground hog, if you win?" The answers were quite interesting to listen to. Then, on Ground Hog Day, we announced the name of the winner on the air, and asked them to come to the station in one hour to pick up their real ground hog. As we presented the lucky winner with their ground hog, we did it live on the air. It was a pleasant surprise to the winner and a great joke to the listening audience when it was revealed the listener they had won 50 lbs. of ground sausage....thus...a REAL ground hog. This is one of those one-time promotions. You could never repeat it in the same market and have the same results. Anyway, hope that helps you.

Marissa,

Just came across this post again, and wanted to check in with you - how did the launch go, and how's your new station doing?  Hope you'll give us an update!

~ Rebecca