Radio Smartly Embraces ’10-Year Challenge’
• If you’ve spent any time on social media over the past week — and let’s face it… we all have — you’ve no doubt stumbled across the “10 Year Challenge” flooding your feed. Wisely climbing aboard this timely train, Rob Mack, Brand Manager of Adams Radio Group Top 40 WJFX (Hot 107.9)/Ft. Wayne immediately swung into action to capitalize on this trend before it’s replaced by the next timely trend.
“My first thought was to just post a simple graphic with an old logo and a new logo, but we were using this logo in 2012 so that wouldn’t work,” said Mack (pictured here in 2012 and 2022). “And that’s when it hit me like an epiphany — We should play big hits from 10 years ago! Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest.”
Mack adds, “The idea came to me late Friday morning to do a ’10 Year Challenge Weekend,’ which is obviously late in the game. Our voice guy, BC (bcvoiceover.com) turned my script around super-quick and I produced the sweepers and scheduled the songs. Our night jock, Mason, worked on a graphic and we had it all on the air by 4pm Friday. We played 3-4 songs per hour from 2012 through the weekend.”
Listeners were treated to 2012 hits from One Direction, Maroon 5, Katy Perry, fun., The Wanted, Lumineers, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, and Gotye, to name a few. Mack said. “2012 was a great year for music. These were the songs our listeners were listening to right here on Hot 107.9 when they took all those original photos on the left. I’m thankful for everyone on my team that we were able to pull it off last minute and do what radio should do — be local, topical, relevant, creative and fun.”
