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FINALIST, WORLD’S MOST CONFUSING & LAME CONTEST or How I Learned To Love Sales Promotions And The Hell With My Audience

An Australian jock writes:

We play 3 short grabs from different movies and the punters (contestants) have to guess the names of the actors. The competition happens every weekday about 7:15.

* The first caller through each day, out of 4 callers, goes into a draw to win a newly released movie DVD at the end of the month.

* The first caller to guess all 3 actors wins a jackpot amount of movie rental vouchers.

* All the contestants that win then go into a draw at the end of the year to win a year’s supply of video rentals.

* On-air the yearly prize is mentioned only when someone goes into the yearly draw.

* It’s hard to explain in words; on-air it’s equally hard explaining it to the listeners. Then you have the problem of someone calling who doesn’t realize that the previous day the actors were guessed and now we have a set of 3 new Video Voices.

My Reaction:

The monthly prize is a video? You mean, they win a video…plus a state-of-the-art entertainment center on which to watch it, right?

A yearly prize?? I’ve never heard of such a thing, but it must be a huge, GIGANTIC prize! Ten million dollars in cash?

This contest is an insult to your listeners, an insult to your radio station, and a compliment to your client’s skill in getting you to give them a year’s worth of advertising without providing any real value in return.

How To Fix This:

No monthly prize.

No yearly prize.

Daily contest: Each day produces one winner, who receives his/her choice of any FIVE videos in the store…to KEEP.

And:

Find a big stick to use on the salesperson who put that monstrosity on the air.