Announcing The 2012 Paigey Awards

Thanking The Little People

So it was the day after CHRISTMAS and I was leisurely trolling through my In-Box and there was an e-mail from JOEL DENVER and JEFF SILBERMAN from ALL ACCESS that inquired, "So you probably don’t have anything going on. Can you pound out a Top-10 Promotions Of 2012 list real quick?"

I quickly replied, "I’ve never been so offended. As a JUILLIARD-trained Marketing Consultant with clients all over the world, there is no such thing as down time!"

(Actually they were right. I was using the day to fulfill my duties as Membership Coordinator for THE BEU SISTERS FAN CLUB and with so many members transitioning to halfway houses, there’s a lot of database updates to be made.)

2012 reminded us that Radio can have a heart, Radio can evoke emotions, but Radio can also be larger-than-life and fun and extraordinary to listen to. What a concept.

I quickly scanned my other e-mails. Maybe THE GAVIN REPORT or HITMAKERS.COM needed something and that would be my excuse to blow them off. Crap. Nothing.

So I sat down (beer is assumed) and put together the top 11 "things" from the past year. Why 11? Why not? Plus it’s bigger and over-compensation is an engrained trait for me.

Thus the 2012 PAIGEY AWARDS. In lieu of a "Price Is Right" model or VANNA WHITE, imagine JENNETTE MCCURDY in a flesh colored bodytard bringing me envelopes at the podium. And now....

#11 - Gas prices end the year down but it hasn’t always been that way. Which is why stations like THE WOLF in GREENSBORO, KSON/SAN DIEGO and KISS in BOISE have gone out and shown that it’s possible to rise above "Be caller 9 and win a $25 gas card!" Both SAN DIEGO and BOISE have created costumed characters named SIR TANKS A LOT and GAS MAN to court traffic during the commute. At KISS, GAS MAN danced and entertained the lines of cars at their gas station event. One of the TV reporters in BOISE actually thanked the station for providing such a great visual for his story. In GREENSBORO, the imaging was voiced by a TEXAS oilman who was aghast that the station would GIVE AWAY gas. Great promotions have great imaging. And this stood out from all the clinical 17-second pabulum out there.

#10 - So, what did you do with the Presidential election? WILD in TAMPA had SARAH LEE make a frantic road trip home to NORTH CAROLINA to vote.  All of it was chronicled in real time on the website and FACEBOOK. It was essentially a Reality TV Show that addressed THE TRENDING topic of that 48-hour period. And like a lot of stations, KOB/ALBUQUERQUE was offered a morning show interview with PRESIDENT OBAMA in the early Fall. Instead of asking him policy questions, they had fun (and so did he) with inquiries about chili peppers, workout music and if he had a super power, what would it be?

I’ve been in radio for 31 years. This was singularly the biggest orgy of press any radio station has ever gotten for not killing a listener. One of their social media stats went up 8,000% overnight. When GLENN BECK spends 13 minutes attacking you by name and you get mentioned at the RNC, it’s a good day.

#9 - Anyone who did stuff around BREAST CANCER MONTH deserves to be mentioned but there’s just not enough space. RADIOWAVE 96.7 in WINDHOEK NAMIBIA did a fundraiser entitled "Cleavage Cuties" that took the submit-post-and-vote online methodology, added bosomy listeners and made a BIG donation to the NAMIBIAN CANCER SOCIETY. To paraphrase CHRIS TAYLOR at FLINN in MEMPHIS: "Winner, winner, chicken dinner!" This was followed up by an event called THE BLACK BRA PARTY that was fun, classy, upscale and raised a bra-load of money for the cause.

#8 - What used to a given, a basic, a fundamental, has become Rocket Science for a lot of stations. This next promotion? I can name 30 stations that would reply with blustery, "Well, we can’t just" and "We have an event next SATURDAY and..." These are the same stations that missed HALLOWEEN and the SUPER BOWL. In a story that was seemingly ripped from "THE SIMPSONS," a man in MILWAUKEE was banned from an ‘all you can eat’ fish place because, well, he ate too much. The story went viral, he was on JIMMY KIMMEL and that’s about the time that 96.5 KLH put together a fish buffet for him in the parking lot. All on five hours notice and it got coverage on two local TV stations. Yes; Promotions ARE best left to scientists.

#7 - The hottest new call-and-win contest of 2012 was "The Secret." Hatched in a bar in WALES by the lovely and talented PAUL KAYE, it was done for GAGA tickets at KDWB, BRITNEY tickets at STAR in PITTSBURGH, $95 cash amounts at BOB in FARGO and tickets at HOT in FT. WAYNE. It plays to the contest players and in PITTSBURGH, they saw a 25% cume increase and the phones were lined up with people wanting to take a shot at it. It’s simple: if you know The Secret, you can win."

#6 - We’re an industry that has taken million-dollar prizes like Meet & Greets and chlorinated them down to meaning basically nothing. "“Like us on FACEBOOK and you could meet KATY PERRY!" Seriously. With BIEBER tickets and backstage passes, KISS in CHARLOTTE and WIXX/GREEN BAY did versions of "Follow The BIEBER." FLY in ALBANY, KDWB in MINNY and Q in MEMPHIS did "Follow The Directions For ONE DIRECTION." Clues at appointment times that would eventually lead you to tickets hidden somewhere in the community. HOT 107.9 in FT. WAYNE had a marginal prize; a trip to see 1D on five consecutive nights. Their version of "Follow The Directions" involved daily instructions or things that needed to be done, which of course induced buzz and talk in the marketplace as listeners did stuff like picket TV stations.

#5 - We’re the Bad Self-Esteem Medium. We’re so desperate to be loved that we resort to giving stuff to people. The two best examples of connecting with people emotionally are CHET BUCHANAN’s Toy Drive at KLUC/LAS VEGAS and KEKE LUV’s Live For 175 in BOISE. These aren’t "sit at a mall and beg for donations" ‘thons. I’m not going to waste space trying to explain how large these are, because unless you’ve gone and seen them, you can’t even imagine.

#4 - I remember launching WILD in SFO and there was a champagne party in the studio. It was a party. An hour later I was at an ATM in BURLINGAME and heard people talking about it. Four hours after launching WILD in TAMPA, the street team returned with ... women’s underwear. Apparently the audience was so moved by the new station that they just started pealing off their panties. In 2012 launching a radio station has devolved into going into spots playing one format and coming out playing another. Very exciting. Which is why the fauxrmat of POT 107.1 in Denver is notable because it got press, it got ears, it got a reporter from CNN showing up. All for the cost of a website -- which was $17.

#3 - We’re in Show Business. If STEVEN SPIELBERG or MONTY HALL were given a car to give away, I doubt that they’d do "click and register" or "“Listen for the Car Tune to win a key." HOT HITS 95.7 in HOUSTON had a car, so they awarded 95 grids on a field and SARAH PEPPER parachuted in. If she landed in your square, you got the car. The video payoff was something that even SPIELBERG would have approved of.

# 2½ - Speaking of video payoff ... there are stations that make great videos and KLUC is one of them. The station had your basic mid-JANUARY "Win a big-screen TV and catering for your Big Game Party" package land in their lap. They created a contest where SHOW KILLER was punted a ball and then ran it up the field. You had to call in and pick a yard line that he would get tackled at by five women from the LINGERIE FOOTBALL LEAGUE. He had a helmet cam. One of the women had a cam in her cleavage. There were three other cameras AND one that was on a wire and "tracked" the play as it progressed. It was amazingly cool to watch. And for the record, the women faceplanted him at the 3-yard line.

# 2 - Going back to the whole "Bad Self-Esteem" thing, it was refreshing to see stations acknowledge the tragedy in NEWTOWN. Again, the learning curve for the industry has skewed so far towards "Handicapable" that it’s embarrassing. NOW in SACRAMENTO, HOT in HOUSTON, STAR in PITTSBURGH, CBS/SAN FRANCISCO, JAMMIN in NEW LONDON, CT, CLEAR CHANNEL/HARTFORD and KSON/SAN DIEGO all deserve to be recognized for stepping up and showing that Radio can be more than inane pop culture posts on FACEBOOK.

And now we’ve come to our #1 slot ... JENNETTE? The envelope, please.

# 1  - 90.3 AMP-FM  in CALGARY pulled off the largest and most amazing contest of 2012. Sales came up with a $300,000 grand prize. A home. A car. Food. Tickets. Basically everything you would need to live for a year.

Remembering that Television has done all of our research for us and that great Radio promotions have roots in Reality TV, they did "Swap Your Wife For A Brand New Life." Hundreds of interviews were conducted before the station settled on five couples. These were people who would be funny and dramatic and who would sound great on the air -- but also look good on camera.

The five couples were then split up with the women (and in one case, the male partner) going to live for two weeks with other husbands. Challenges were proffered; they were put through games and obstacles and basically tortured. One "couple" was selected based on points and audience votes, they were given 30 minutes to divvy up the prize and then sent home to their respective spouses.

2012 reminded us that Radio can have a heart, Radio can evoke emotions, but Radio can also be larger-than-life and fun and extraordinary to listen to. What a concept.

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