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Kisumu’s Urban Radio 90.7 FM has launched season 3 of their much-hyped consumer promo, Epic 48. The third edition of the competition that aims to give audiences the best 48 hours of their lives went live on Monday.
The campaign usually involves a short nomination period where listeners nominate themselves to have this once-in-a-lifetime experience with their plus one. During the last season, the station received over two thousand entries.
Epic 48 is not an Urban Radio original idea per se, and they don’t attempt to claim so. The idea was adapted from syndicated radio show producer, R Dub, of the Sunday Night Slow Jams, which also aired on Urban Radio and other 200 radio stations across the world.
“Epic 48 is the flagship audience promotion by Urban Radio 90.7 FM. We think of ourselves as an epic station and this is one of the ways we reward our listeners,” said Urban Radio CEO Ben “Japs” Ogombe in an earlier interview with this publication.
To participate listeners are required to register by logging into https://www.urbanradio.co.ke/epic48/. Last year, Urban Radio and their partners splashed Sh 1.2 million to give the two winning couples an amazing two days that started with an eviction party at Kisumu’s Alleyways Beer Garden, a night at the Grand Royal Swiss Hotel.
The couples then few to Nairobi via Safarilink for a brief stopover at Mara Olesereni and just as the contestants thought their afternoon could not get any better, they quickly hopped onto another flight to Diani in South Coast after a brief encounter at the hotel with their idols.
“I have always admired CMB Prezzo. I casually joked about it at our eviction party and you could imagine the surprise on my face when we arrived at Olesereni and there was Prezzo in flesh and blood coming to say hi to me and congratulating me for being among the Season 2 winners,” said an excited Athman Salim when we spoke on phone about his Epic 48 experience in November 2021.
“There were a lot of memorable moments in those two days. The party, the five-star hotels, the executive limos…but for me what stood out was the fact that Urban Radio spared no cent to keep the whole thing exciting. I would be joking about wanting to meet Prezzo, and the next hour he is at my table,” he added.
For Samantha Cook who was part of the other couple that won, it was the adrenaline that came with the competition…always trying to stay ahead of her competition during the elimination stages. She even got a skill out of it, she says.
“The contest was intense and fun at the same time. It actually made me work on my social media marketing skills to come out on top,” she says during a recent phone interview.
“My most memorable moments was when we went snorkelling, I love adventures. Being able to dive into the ocean and experience the underwater was just breathtaking,” she adds.
In our previous interview with Ogombe, he had promised that season 3 is going to be a passport edition, which means that contestants will be flying out of the country to a place they can have fun in and return to Kisumu within 48 hours…we hope that is still so.
When we talked earlier today about the launch though, he promised that this was going to be the best of the series ever.
“If you think Season 1 & 2 was something, you have not seen anything yet,” he says.
Why does the station spend so much money on fans for just 48 hours?
The station has three key pillars with the first being “music.” It’s known to play only number one hits; all the songs on the station’s music rotation were at one point number one in the charts. The second pillar is “the vibe,” the content, the conversation with presenters and the audience engagement.
The third pillar is lifestyle. They think of the station as a way of life. How do you define an urban person, what do urban people do?
“A big part of urban people is travelling, it’s experiencing places, it is having fun. So. Epic 48 falls squarely under that lifestyle pillar for Urban Radio” says Ogombe.
You can watch previous seasons of Epic 48 by clicking here.
