Promos: WHO IS MINDING THE STORE?

This week I am giving you a brilliant and classic old promo which I found while digging through the archives at one of my favourite websites… WORLD RADIO HISTORY

This is such a cool promo that it could still be run easily today – keeping advertisers, listeners and sales people happy.

Now, this is not a new promotion, in fact it has been around since the very early days of radio in one form or another, but it is still relevant – and I love that!

The details are as follows:

Promo name: Who Is Minding The Store?
Run over 3 weeks – up to 4 times a day (in different shifts/day parts) and sold to a minimum of 10 advertisers.

Divide the advertisers into separate groups – of 5 in different combinations, get the clients to come into the station and pre-record their spots as needed/shown below.

Format for on-air game play…
Play the Cue to Call promo – “We are after caller number 4” or what ever number you are after.

“We have <LISTENERS NAME> from <SUBURB>, are you ready to play Who Is Minding The Store? Here we go… Who is minding the store today? Is it… David Hardly at Hardly Home Hardware in <SUBURB>? Joan Smith at Joan’s Appliances downtown? Or Henry Carathurs at Quality Cars in <SUBURB>? Matilda Johnson at Windmill Fashions? Or David Hughes at your local Bendigo Bank?”

That’s an advertiser name mention for all 5 advertisers.

The listener then guesses (which is another name mention) and then plays the random recording of the owner chosen for that shift “I am Henry Carathurs at Quality Cars in <SUBURB>, and I’m minding the store!” And that is yet again another name mention for the advertiser.

This is meant to be a totally random recording so even the Jocks don’t know who it is that is minding the store, so maybe have the cart numbered, not named so as to not give away the right answer to the jock.

If the winner has guessed correctly – they win a prize (either from the store – or the prize cupboard) If not – well they still get a prize, but a small one.

So everybody wins, the listener with a prize if they get it right or not – and the advertisers by getting their name mentioned over 60+ times in the play period, if you do it 5 days a week (that’s 10 advertisers, 5 at a time, 4 times a day, and the number of times the advertisers name comes up as ‘Minding The Store’ plus the prize they donated as well)… that’s at a minimum.

Why a minimum – because you also include their business name in the promo that plays – you do need to make several different promos to add this value for clients.

Also, you could get the clients to record their message in-store (or over the phone) – but the quality will be average – better to get them to come in and record it with a producer.

The best thing for the promotions department is that advertisers love to hear themselves on-air, they will get positive feedback from friends and shoppers saying that they heard them on-air and better yet – everyone listening will be thinking of not only the business name – but the advertisers name (stroking that ego always works), so when you go to run it next time – the clients should be lining up around the block to get onboard.