Think about the surprize not just the prize: Wade Kingsley #RDE19

Wade Kingsley gave 5 tips for successful contests at Radiodays Europe.

His top tips are:

  1. Contests are content, think of how they will sound
  2. Focus on the surprize, not just the prize
  3. Make sure your promotions have an emotional element, not just a transactional element
  4. Go high or low, but never in the middle.
  5. Prioritise external marketing to tell people about the contest

In his presentation Kingsley explained the need to plan the contest across its duration as you would plan other elements in a show, there needs to be more than just a big opening and a big prize giveaway at the end.

He told the story of a listener who was surprized when Triple M paid for her 21st birthday party in a promotion. She was surprized, and it was memorable. So memorable in fact that when Kingsley met her twenty years later she was still talking about it.

View his 5 minute top tips presentation below.
 

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In an earlier, longer session, Kingsley, founder of The Ideas Business, conducted a session on how to generate creative ideas.
 
Brainstorming is not the best way to do that, contends Kingsley.
 
He opened his interactive session with a round of singing, which warmed up an otherwise cool room of foreigners first thing in the morning.
 
“Imagine if your boss came into the meeting room full of staffers and said to the group: ‘come up with some ideas to grab new listeners. Most people would have a brain freeze.
 
“Start with something that allows the participants to draw and visualise the proposal. We have been conditioned to believe that brainstorming will help us create new ideas. But, being in a group, in one room with a blank page, simply does not work and stifles creative activity.”
 
He said brainstorming is “one of the least effective ways to be creative,” according to a lot of research over the years. People do it because they don’t know any other way to go about it.
 
Kingsley believes it is not helpful and new methods need to be sourced.
 
How do you teach people to be creative? Kingsley demonstrated some techniques, like drawing or partnering up with one other person to address the problem that has to be  solved.
 
“It’s really about problem solving and everyone has the ability to do that. Children are experts, if you’ve watched them draw you’ll see they can come up some amazing visuals and have the ability to justify their ideas and inspiration.
 
“Also it’s much easier to work within a pair and find a partner who you work well with. Innovative ideas are forthcoming by being either on your own, or in pairs, which assists in bouncing off each other.
 
“Ideas do not come into your head like a lightning bolt. Creativity can be generated by using a different technique.”
 
Other tips included: Ask lots of questions to establish the details of what you want to solve, and look for inspiration from outside sources (movies, music, etc) to get your ideas going.

 

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