62 WHEN Radio
Syracuse
BUMPER STICKER EVOLUTION
At the height of WHEN's success, one of the many marketing tools used to effectively promote the station were bumper stickers. During the late 70's and early 80's it was not uncommon to spot these highly recognizable bumper stickers on cars far and near. The resounding success of this perpetual WHEN bumper sticker distribution was the envy of program and promotion directors everywhere. Surely such success was a source of great annoyance and frustration to one competing Syracuse program director in particular. In 1983 this frustrated programmer reportedly encouraged his air staff to berate WHEN on his station at every opportunity. The following memo, issued by then General Manager Bob Carolin, would seemingly give some insight into the acrimony between the warring stations at the time.
While the mean-spirited rancor from some of WHEN's main competitor's continued, the station's bumper sticker evolution moved non-stop well into the late 1980's. While the display of 62 WHEN bumper stickers below is by no means complete, it does represent a good sample of those that were commonplace throughout the late 1970's and into the late 1980's. One of the more memorable bumper stickers not included in this display is one which was distributed in the mid-1970's. "I'm Cruisin' for The 62 Heavy Chevy" was widely distributed at the time, but unfortunately, was not available for inclusion in this series.
Circa 1976
The above sticker appeared at about the same time as the "I'm Cruisin' for the 62 Heavy Chevy", though somewhat later. At the time this sticker was in use, the station was still broadcasting from the James Street location (WHEN AM & TV) and the line-up included the likes of Phil Markert, Jack Mindy, Jeff Laurence, Jim Shaeffer, Ray Diorio, Captain Gordon, and others. In photos of the famous "62 Heavy Chevy" you'll spot this logo style duplicated on the rear quarter panels.
Circa 1977
This sticker was about 2 series ahead of what would become the super successful "62
WHEN License Plate Logo" bumper sticker.
Circa 1978
The evolution of the WHEN bumper sticker continues around 1978. Still the station
had not hit on the idea of using a sticker resembling a New York license plate for their
sticker design. That would soon change.
Circa 1979
The mother of all license plate logo bumper stickers. The first 62 WHEN
"license plate" bumper sticker. This sticker comes about as a result of a
contest called "License to Win" in which listeners
had to keep tabs of where each one of the 50 U.S. state license plates were
"symbolically" hidden about Central New York. "License to Win"
entry blanks were distributed at sponsor locations throughout Central New York
Circa - late 1980's
One of the bigger stickers (this was almost standard bumper sticker size) WHEN ever used
was one that resembled New York's new license plate design that was implimented in the
latter part of the 1980's. Prior to this, the "62 WHEN License Plate Logo"
had essentially been used non-stop since 1979. Sometimes, however, with slight
modifications such as one used in 1985 (not shown) that promoted anti-DWI. Client
advertising on any WHEN bumper stickers up until this time had been verboten.
It was during the late 1980's however, that Pepsi became the first WHEN client to share
promotional space on a station bumper sticker. It may be the only advertiser to ever
had this opportunity.
When easily removable "window" stickers became vogue toward the end of the
1980's, the WHEN "bumper" sticker was about to see its demise. A 62 WHEN
"window sticker" marked the end of an era. Not only did it mark the end of
a remarkably successful bumper sticker campaign over the years, it also marked the
beginning of the end for what had been a once great...and successful, personality-driven
radio station.
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