It was like a War of the Roses episode, but with a happy ending.
The contestant on Germany’s FFH Radio Frankfurt major contest said he had never watched porn on the job. That was true. He said he had never tried to cheat any government agency. That was true. Then he was asked if he had cheated on his wife while she was pregnant 19 years ago. (We already knew that the wife suspected this.) He said no. It was true. He won E10,000. A cloud was lifted from the marriage after nearly two decades.
FFH’s “Lie Detector” was one of the 10 promotions spotlighted in this year’s “Great Promotions from Around the World.” They were presented by Niall Power, head of sound and morning host of Southeast Ireland’s Beat 102-103, at this year’s RadioDays Europe, held in Munich March 24-26. The well-attended, well-regarded RDE is the inspiration for RadioDays North America, which convenes for a second year in Toronto on June 2-4.
When we wrote about Power’s RDE presentation last year, we noted how no American radio stations were represented. (The last one was five years ago.) Most of the promotions spotlighted here are hard to imagine on a landscape dominated by text-to-win contests. One is too profane by U.S. radio standards. But there are at least one or two that seem like they would could be done by anybody, even at a time of shrinking budgets.
That includes Q Music Belgium’s Vorbotten Woord. Instead of waiting for the station to mess up a no-repeat workday, listeners were on the lookout for a “forbidden word” to slip into jock breaks. (Song lyrics, commercials, and listener comments didn’t count.) When jocks did use the word “maybe,” listeners went to the station app to qualify to win.
There were two Halloween promotions. Top 40 BBC Radio 1’s Jordan North was suspended above a tank of green slime for The Radio 1 Drop. The suspense stemmed from which of the 11 other presenters would push the button to submerge him. For the Hot AC 98FM Dublin Murder Mystery, presenter Suzanne Kane was “electrocuted” by a faulty microphone; other staffers were questioned until listeners guessed the culprit the next day.
At Power’s own Beat 102-103, morning co-host Shonagh Lyons mentioned that she had never slept in a tent. That led to the Beat Breakfast Camp-Out, “the first mini-festival of summer,” featuring a celebrity chef, a TikTok star, and a musical performance.
A celebrity chef and a musical performance came together in a different way for KFM Cape Town, South Africa’s Mystery Mic. Four local celebrities went into the studio with different record producers to record well-known songs; listeners had to guess the voices. One was the Mayor of Cape Town. The celebrity chef was the one who turned out to be the best singer. (Also, KFM’s afternoon show is called “The Flash Drive.”)
Last year, the UK’s Absolute Radio gave a listener their own side channel. For Bush & Richie’s Bonus Day, listeners were given their choice of bucket-list fantasies to take place on Feb. 29. (The winner was easy to please: He wanted a tour of an abandoned subway station.) For Radio Rock Finland’s Korporatio 100, the combined birthdays of two 50-year-old hosts led to a 100-hour bus tour of Finland, broadcast live for 12 hours a day.
Australia’s two best-known morning shows were both featured. Christian O’Connell, based at Gold 104.3, turned 48 Hours of Groundhog Day into an endurance contest; eight listeners somehow managed to stay awake to split a $20,000 shopping spree.
Then there’s the promotion that could only take place in a country with much more relaxed rules about language than ours. (Australian radio, until relatively recently, played unedited versions of hit songs.) Last year, KIIS-FM Sydney’s Kyle & Jackie O’s major promotion was a gender reveal. This year, listeners were asked to stay aloft not on an Urban Cowboy-style mechanical bull, but a giant rooster called the Cash C*ck, a promotion that was almost entirely an excuse for the double entendres that went with it.
Those were Power’s favorite promotions. What was yours? Please leave a comment.
This story first appeared on radioinsight.com