http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/calgary-radio-station-burned-5-000-doubles-down-145653067.html?vp=
Calgary radio station that burned $5,000 doubles down with another contest
A Calgary radio station that burned $5,000 in cash as part of an elaborate publicity stunt is facing a backlash from local listeners, even as it plans to run a similar contest with $10,000 on the line.
AMP Radio recently ran a contest called "Bank it or Burn it," in which listeners could weigh in on what the station should do with $5,000. The result of public voting was 54 per cent in favour of burning the money, rather than splitting it among listeners or donating it to charity.
Now, the station is set to run the same contest with $10,000. Even as some members of the public predictably criticize the contest.
“What a disgusting choice to burn it while people are starving and children living in poverty are suffering,” one listener wrote on Facebook.
“Pathetic. Count another listener lost here,” wrote another. While some respondents were in favour of the result, the overwhelming majority seemed outraged at the act. Even the hosts behind the stunt seemed shocked at the decision to burn the money.
In a YouTube clip of the contest results, hosts Ryan and Katie can be seen standing behind a table where $5,000 in cash is being displayed. Ryan talks about all the things he could do with the loot, including pay rent and buy diapers for his child.
"There’s a lot of things that could be taken care of really, really easily. It is shocking to see this much money," he says. "But in a couple of minutes, none of this will exist anymore."
The money is then fed into a crematorium incinerator and can be seen burning into ashes.
Starting on Monday, AMP Radio will run the same contest again, this time with $10,000 on the line. And based on the backlash from its first go-around, we can expect a larger, more vocal response. In other words, more listeners to the station, more visits to their website, more social media shares, more word-of-mouth advertising. More Buzz with a capital B.
To those people who are upset the station burned $5,000 – and there are a lot of them – consider that the sum runs well under the cost associated with drumming up this much publicity through traditional advertising avenues.
In other words, it may have be the more financially savvy option. But radio stations have done far less to attain levels of infamy.
Recently, an Atlanta radio station convinced the world that an upscale Atlanta neighbourhood had launched a petition to keep troubled Canadian pop star Justin Bieber from moving in.
The petition, which was widely reported at a time when Bieber's public image was taking a hit for a series of arrests in the U.S. and Canada, was later outed as a publicity stunt for WROK Rock 100.5 FM.
Similarly, an Ottawa radio station banned Bieber's music until he agrees to go to rehab. Music bans are a common form for publicity stunts. The same Ottawa station had also banned Chris Brown's music in 2009.
A Fort McMurray station recent banned music by Neil Young in protest of his opposition to the oilsands.
Radio station stunts can also take a positive spin, however. In chilly Winnipeg, 92 CITI FM is dealing with the city's ongoing issue of frozen pipes by running a contest in which the winners get to jump the queue and have their pipes serviced sooner. The contest is run in conjunction with a local plumbing and heating company and it really just involves having a private company step in while city crews work slowly through the backlog of frozen pipe complaints.
That contest won't garner as much attention because it doesn't involve burning cash that could otherwise go to buying diapers or, as the Calgary Herald points out, providing food and shelter for Calgary's homeless community.
With another $10,000 going up for a possible cremation, will outraged AMP Radio listeners inundate the station with demands that they do something meaningful with the money? The station is surely banking on it.
