Around 1972 at KCBQ AM San Diego, Jack McCoy introduced one of the all time great radio promotions. The Last Contest was a bigger than life ratings promotion filled with great ‘anticipation’.
Jack was not only innovative, insightful , creative, etc., Jack, was one of the best production guys ever. He voiced and produced all promos. ALL were improvised. No script. He made up the copy as he went along. He’d bang out 75 promos of which 70 were award winners every day.
Jack had a thing about the promo only airing once.
His voice and delivery were unique to begin with, but as well, he had words and phrases that had an intelligence, mystery and hipness. He used this approach in describing the prize packages being offered. The last contest was really a secret phone contest. (“When we announce the secret phone number, call in and choose any prize.”) But rarely did you hear this contest mechanic. What you heard was what seemed like a thousand different cool prize offers. A new one each hour. “Prize Package # 103, Imagine yourself…” These incredibly well produced prize packages are what caught the city’s attention. KCBQ, which was AM going against the new KGB FM, hit a 23 share with this promotion.
The prize packages were incredible. Very creative ‘lifestyle adventures’ and ‘action adventures’. It was the wording that gave this campaign mystery and anticipation. Mechanics were second. Rather than spend a lot of time telling you how to win, he spent most of the time telling you what you could win…and the prize packages just kept coming. “Choose this or any other prize package in the Last Contest."
As I learned from KCBQ, it’s not so much the ‘giving away’ of the prize is as it is the ‘anticipation’ of winning the prize that provided those ratings. The station only gave away one prize. Most people thought they were giving them all away. The winner got to chose from over hundreds of prize packages.
Showcases, as presented today with the rewards program, come from this thinking. Imagine if you will…
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