Innovation Award: KROC Morning Show

It's been nearly a month since we awarded BuyOnlineNow.com with an Innovation Award. Today, we honor James Rabe and the KROC Morning Show. As an added disclaimer, CWS designed their website in 2003. However, this award is not about the design of the website but about how they use it.

Over the past few years, James Rabe has done an amazing job of transforming the morning "radio" show into an interactive medium using the web. He uses the web to "communicate" with his listeners on items he talks about on-air. For example, he uploaded a picture of the $1,200 chandelier that Britney Spears had put on her baby registry after discussion the topic on-air. This type of activity has greatly enhanced the "dialogue" that he (as a radio personality) can have with his listeners.

In addition, the station has done a fantastic job of cross-promotion with features such as online giveaways, "femail" (forwarded email), and rate-the-hits. But James hit a "home run" when he started taking pictures at Rookie's Ladies Night and posting them to an online photo album. This creative idea has generated an enormous amount of traffic to the KROC website and transformed a "faceless" medium (radio) into a personable business. Not only that, but James gets to spend every Wednesday evening taking photos of the hottest ladies in town. Deep down, I know this might be the real reason he started this gig. Whatever the reason, he's definitely creating a buzz and for that he gets our third Innovation Award.

Filed in: CWS, rochester, mn, innovation, kroc