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A Great Way to Market Your Morning Show With Little To No Budget
October 9, 2012
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. With a slogan on the side of a van that was decided on by Twitter followers of the show, Absolute Radio's Christian O'Connell Breakfast Show drove for three days from John O'Groats to Land's End to spread the good word of the show.
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Christian O'Connell is one of the leading talents in UK commercial radio. He's an award winning DJ with eight prestigious Gold Sony Radio Awards.
He's the voice that gets millions of people out of bed every morning and from 6am-10am on Absolute Radio, the UK Commercial Radio Station of the Year 2012.
His show is a whirlwind of celebrity interviews, cheeky banter and the kind of comedy capers that get listeners into work with a smile on their faces. The Christian O'Connell breakfast show is the great success story in UK breakfast radio, recently achieving its highest results to date and now closing in on number one in London.
Doing a quick comparison vs three years ago:
W2 2009
W2 2012
Increase
% change
Reach
909,000
1,420,000
511,000
+ 56%
Hours
2,729,000
2,845,000
2,116,000
+ 78%
The Christian OConnell Breakfast Show has increased it’s reach by 56%, adding more than half a million new listeners. It’s hours have increased by 78%, adding more than two million more weekly listening hours.
The team must be doing something right!
With no marketing budget to speak of, how was the Christian O'Connell Breakfast Show going to tell the UK to switch over to Absolute Radio?
Hire a van, that's how.
With a slogan slapped on the side of the van that was decided on by Twitter followers of the show, Christian's co-host Richie Firth drove for three days from John O'Groats to Lands End (Land's End is the extreme westerly point on the mainland of England, which hasa particular resonance because it is often used to suggest distance). Land's End to John O' Groats in Scotland is a distance of 838 miles (1,349 km) by road, which Richie drove while using the van to spread the good word of the show. Christian made sure he wasn't missed on the show along the way, issuing challenges to Richie each day and inviting guests to transport in the cab to take the boredom away from his journey. A harmonica playing drunk, a mad clown, and appearance at half time on the pitch at Preston North End Football Club were just some of Richie's stops along the way.
It's not easy to pull off such an adventure. For plenty of stations, it's just too hard, but increasingly great morning shows are deriving real benefit.
- Using social networking, you can really create anticipation for your visit.
- It's great content.
- Planned properly, you can meet a big number of fans and expose the show and the team to potential new listeners.
- You can force a tune in at a set time the next day.
- Sponsors will come on board
You do need to think about the journey.........where are you strong? Where do you need to build the numbers? (Think Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. Ohio is where the warring halves of America seem to meet. This midwestern state, mixing rural farmland, small towns, and decaying industrial cities, is the ground zero of the 2012 election that will possibly decide who wins the White House.
Getting the station and, in particular, the Morning team out and about to meet the listeners is critical.
Find an excuse to do it.
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