The Grammy Awards are on Monday, February 15. It’s always fun to bring opposites together. Gather the grandmothers of the cast as well as those of some listeners and pit them against each other in a fun contest to see which grammy knows the artists and groups who will be up for The Grammy’s.
Every iconic Super Bowl commercial for the last fifty years can be found online. Grab the biggest, most memorable ones and edit out the name of the product (if in the commercial). Through the week leading up to Sunday’s game, play one and see if your audience can remember what product it was for.
Listeners like to chime in on dilemmas that face the show. A cast member tells the audience that their spouse wants to have a Super Bowl party in a couple of weeks but that they don’t want to. The cast member then says that they told their partner they will but want to tell the invitees that it’ll be a half of a Super Bowl party. Basically telling those who come that they’ll need to leave at (or after) halftime. The audience can share if this is appropriate and you can even find an etiquette expert who can comment on it, too.
Rob and Joss, Froggy 92.9, Santa Rosa, CA, do a weekly feature that’s very strategic to developing the characters of their on-air cast called “Know the Show”. It’s an old feature that’s been done several different ways. They get one listener on and say one sentence that applies to a show member (i.e. this person graduated from Berkley, this person’s parents live in Canada, this character just got a dog). The listener must match up the sentence with the person. Do this feature and you’ll know how much the caller has retained about the personal stories you’ve told on-the-air.
Bet you have no idea what it’s like to win Powerball, right? With no winner this week and the jackpot now at an estimated $1.3-billion, do a Google search for people who’ve won large sums of money in the lottery and get them to tell their story of how their lives changed (good and bad) because of it.
Here’s an easy character development game you can play just back from vacation called “Who Got Them Gifts?” This is a test to see how well the audience knows you. List for the audience several gifts a cast member got for Christmas (make sure to throw in a few odd ones). Listeners must guess which person on the show received that bounty!
Not much time left until Christmas. Many parents are running out of places for the Elf on the Shelf, something they use to keep the kids in line. Simple phone topic – ask listeners to give you new locations as everyone counts down the days to the holiday!
Mix kids and Santa and you have a win. Invite kids to come on the show and make their pitch on why they deserve certain toys and gifts directly to Santa. You’ll need someone fun to play Santa Claus and great phone screening so you have kids who can contribute to the bit (and not just offer up one word answers to questions).
Know that tangled string of Christmas lights you have in the house? Challenge a show member to untangle them. The curve ball can be that they compete against a brainiac from a local college who will, at the same time, try to figure out Rubik’s cube. First to do it wins. This is a visual so make sure you grab that for social media. And to add a twist, invite a local sportscaster in to do the play-by-play as things unfold.
The big box stores ain’t going nowhere. They have large footprints and massive marketing budgets. That’s why you’ll get behind your market’s small businesses by showing them some love through Christmas. This is the time of year that makes or breaks their year. So do “(Your Town’s) A-Z: The 26 Days of Christmas”. Once a day, choose a letter in the alphabet and let any employee of a local small business starting with that letter call to plug where they work. The image you’ll get from this is that you support the little guy. Which is very powerful.