Career Mirror -- by Berenice Gargus

Ryan Dryden likes his job. Why wouldn't he? As Promotions Director for CJAY 92, Vibe 98.5 and AM 1060, he finds a bunch of cool stuff and gives it away.

Ryan Dryden, Promotions Director

"I call it free junk," Dryden laughs. He says the stations get tons of swag - "mostly for giveaways, but..." His fingers snatch at the air mischievously. "There's usually a few extra."

Yes, it's true. Getting, giving and taking home free tickets, CDs or movie passes is a legitimate part of the job when you work in promotions. But it's a wee bit more complicated than it sounds.

Dryden regularly works with eight salespeople to create "value-added" promotions for the big advertisers. These giveaways promote both the advertiser and the station.

And it's a proven fact people will tune in if they think they can win something. How Dryden distributes the swag is carefully planned to attract and retain as many listeners as possible.

One of CJAY's current promotions actually helps the station keep tabs on how effective their promotions are. If you're a member of the Rock Rewards program, you collect reward points in various ways. You can then use them to buy promotional packages and tickets online. "It's like an airmiles thing," Dryden says, explaining its widespread appeal. "There are four different times of day when you can see the spikes in the book."

The book, he explains, lists the results of a market survey conducted three times a year by a company called BBM.

Advertising, marketing and promotions are all tied together in this big business. Dryden explains "it's not really a dollar exchange" going on between the companies during promotions, "it's more, 'ok, you give me a planeload of tickets to go up to Edmonton and see the Heritage hockey game and we'll give you this much promotion time.'" Everyone loves free stuff, so they tune in.

Dryden coordinates all the marketing and promotions for the three stations under the company Standard Radio (parent to many stations Canada-wide). He writes the promotions, develops proposals, works closely with his team of three assistants and seven "jocks" (disk jockeys), and has come away with happy clients and a balanced budget every September for the past six years. (Well, maybe not completely balanced those first two.)

As if this weren't enough, Dryden also comes up with the stations' own advertising. CJAY's current campaign features Gerry Forbes in a tux with the caption "Intelligent & sofistikated" on 32 billboards and 192 bus benches. Their TV spot, produced at White Iron, is now running on A-Channel, Global, and the Shaw network. "It got punted out of CFCN," Dryden chuckles, citing a lewd gesture made by Forbes's 'grandmother' in the commercial. Wanna know what it was? The ad must be working.

With all that on his plate, you'd think Dryden would be a stressed-out, overworked basket of nerves, rushing from meeting to meeting in a suit. But he's not. Not at all.

Dryden got into the business after he took a two-year radio broadcasting program at Canadore College in North Bay Ontario. The station placement turned into a promotions assistant job that lasted four years. He says a few of the promotions assistants at Standard Radio were hired after part-time positions on teams like the Babe Patrol or the Street Team.

Dryden's day starts about 8:30 or 9:00 AM - he actually laughs when asked. Perhaps this is because his workday never seems to end. "It sounds kind of weird but you're never really off the clock," he says. "You could be at home watching TV and go, 'that's a great idea', or you're out at a club having a few cocktails with your friends and all of a sudden you're yakking about different promotions with the bar manager. So it's not like at five o'clock you say OK, the office is shut. I'm not thinking about work. The radio is always on."

Perks aside, if you want to work this type of promotions job you must have "that passion for radio," says Dryden. "You could have meetings in the morning, afternoons, evenings; Gerry could be broadcasting his morning show live so we'll be there;" then in the evening, "you're off to the Red Hot Chili Peppers."

Sure, his office is peppered with free stuff - beer glasses and mini-kegs, tickets to bar parties, T-shirts, travel mugs, and more - but it's the fact no two days are the same that keeps Dryden charged about a job that lives with him all day long.

Free contest-winner babysitting trips to Hawaii, Vegas, Puerto Vallarta, Cancun, Cuba - or this year, Jamaica - don't seem to hurt much either.

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