EMIRAT AG is one of the leading risk management and insurance companies in the world and the market leader in promoting giveaways. Critical of the way most radio stations handle their competitions, Ralph Clemens Martin (EMIRAT, Germany) showed audience members how even the smallest stations can hold the biggest giveaways. Ralph talked passionately about odds and emotions. The secret, he claims, to any successful on-air competition.
The bigger the prize, the higher the emotional jeopardy, the more listeners become invested in you and your radio station. Giving an example of a radio station in Berlin, a competition to win €1 million resulted in an 11.9% increase in listeners. The insurance, he insists, is the chance for radio stations to be free – they can imagine new competition mechanics and ways to win. That means that radio stations can turn any local event into a jackpot winning contest, profiting both financially and in reputation.
The partnership with a local car garage becomes a lot more exciting when a car is up-for-grabs, and at a 5% investment to insure against wins, it doesn’t cost that much more. By way of example, to cover the shiny new Ferrari in the lobby of the Radiodays conference – a value of €180,000 – it would only cost €5,530 to cover. On the subject of prizes, Ralph says that listeners need to see what they’re doing with money. For prizes under €50,000, he reckons physical representations of prizes do better than purely financial ones. Most people though, he admits, just want the cash – and it doesn’t matter which the winner wants to take – but visualising the winnings in a physical object makes the game more attractive.
