If I looked back at my biggest disasters (and there would be a lot to choose from), they were all done “as requested” by the client. These were promotions that I should have stood my ground and said, “This isn’t going to be good. Let’s fix it and pitch them something that will work for them AND us.”
During my formative years I was incredibly fortunate to work at WLOL in the Twin Cities. The station was a monster and the talent in the halls was ridiculous. And not just on-air but just across the board from Traffic and Production to the Business Office and Engineering.
On Wednesday August 1, 2007 at approximately 6 pm, the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi in downtown Minneapolis collapsed, killing 13 people.
At the exact moment of the collapse, downtown Minneapolis went silent, bells rang, Alli, with her live phone bowed her head….and a stringer for the Associated Press happened to point, shoot and her photo ended up being the image that ended up in print and digital media around the world.
If you get a bunch of Programmers together, inevitably someone will bring up the time some AE agreed to do something atrocious or committed the station to doing something that, well, was a really bad idea. It can be soul crushing to see a station just waste a million dollar prize for a seemingly tiny sales opportunity knowing the insane lengths that people will go to try and just PURCHASE concert tickets.
Promotions as applied to Radio, gaming or anything else requires that you know the audience and what they would actually pay money for. Beefy tee “fun run shirts” aren’t going to move the needle in 2023.
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