Karlson and McKenzie, WZLX, Boston Scared Straight Santa

This is one of my favorite breaks ever as done by Karlson and McKenzie, WZLX, Boston.  We were looking to find an edgy way to connect with the audience.  The show has attitude and swagger and we wanted to channel that sense of humor into a holiday idea that would be much different than the standard fare phone topics most shows do around this time of year.  Enter Scared Straight Santa.  Everyone knows of the “scared straight” concept where prisoners scare kids into towing the line so they don’t end up in jail.  We used that to keep misbehaving children in line for their parents or else Santa won’t show up.  The first break is the call from a parent who tells us how their kid is misbehaving.  The next break (the one below) is when Pete McKenzie calls back as Santa and challenges the kid to promise to be good.  This hits all important images you should have:  it’s fun, it’s real, it’s innovative, and it’s relatable.