Its hard to tell sometimes whether radio sets trends, follows them or merely reflects and amplifies them. If you have an opinion on that, we’d love to hear it. Most stations use trends in their promotions as a way to tap into the lifestyles of their listeners. But if the worth of a promotion is measured by the amount of external publicity it generates for the station, then arguably two of the world’s most successful in recent times have centered around the modern trend of breast augmentation and the ancient but still popular lifestyle habit of predicting the end of the world.
Canadian station 90.3 Amp Radio’s ‘Breast Summer Ever’ contest to win a $10,000 boob job drew flack from many quarters which is precisely what earned the station the publicity they wanted. But is it the positioning statement that they needed?
That publicity paled into insignificance compared to that achieved by the Family Radio Network in the U.S. and it’s founder 89 year old Harold Camping who predicted, as it turned out, unsuccessfully, that the end of the world would begin to occur on may 21st 2011. Perhaps no other network in history has pulled off a stunt quite so audacious. Imagine if his prediction had’ve been correct!
In publicity terms the promotion was hugely successful. Google Harold Camping and you get more than 3.7 million hits. But at what cost?
Unlike ‘The Secret Sound’ the ‘Doomsday’ promotion can only be done effectively once. Few stations, if any, will try to copy it. Thank goodness.
But while The Doomsday promotion destroyed the lives of loyal listener/believers, the Boob Job perhaps destroys something more subtle. Is the publicity worth it?