ARN’s Will & Woody Panel at Cannes In Cairns descended into utter chaos as a game of “Soft Drink Or Beer” turned the Reef Room of the Cairns Convention Centre into a giant game show hosted by Will McMahon and Woody Whitelaw.
Starting out as an in-joke, the game first came to fruition when one of the show producers opened a can in the quiet office. Will and Woody played a game with themselves to determine if he was, in fact, opening an afternoon soft drink or if he had just cracked open a beer prior to the show’s kickoff.
With a trip to Las Vegas for the IHeartMusic festival on the line, the crowd came to life – quickly picking up the trick and beating Will and Woody at their own game. Eventually, running out of time, the pair switched it up, with the session instead becoming a case of “what can do I have behind my back”.
It was all fun and games, and a lot of spare drinks for the Cannes In Cairns production team, but this wasn’t just a fun way to kick off morning sessions; it was a live activation for Fiji Airways, who were, in partnership with ARN, offering the trip to Vegas.
This isn’t the first time that Will & Woody have partnered with Fiji Airways. Last year, the airline sent the pair, and their families over the Fiji, staying at the Radison Blu on Denarau Island they broadcasted live from Fiji for a week with the majority of the content centred around their experiences, both organised and, less so.
“We saw this swim-up bar and thought how funny would it be if I went and ordered a drink, and then jumped into the water? And you replaced me?” Will explained. “How funny would it be when the person turned around and looked back and was like, I swear that guy had hair before? That ended up being a huge part of the week, which was above and beyond what we agreed we were going to be doing, but we had a lot of fun with that as well”.
The partnership was a chance for listeners to experience all the incredible highs of a holiday to Fiji through the voices of someone who is experiencing it first hand, someone they already trust and listen to anyway – rather than an ad placed in the middle of a radio show.
Christina Templin, senior manager of global marketing at Fiji Airways, who appeared alongside Will & Woody on the panel, said that the idea for the trip really came from the knowledge that no one inside the Fiji Airways team knew anywhere near as much about the radio program’s audience better than the boys did.
“We were doing a lot on the digital side; we’ve got out of home, catch up TV, spots and dots on the radio. It was just about looking at doing something different. Audiences online, they’ll see the beautiful pictures, they’ll see all of that. But what do you do when they’re driving to work? How do you get them throughout the whole entire journey?” Templin said.
“We actually had someone call in two weeks ago, was calling to play the quiz that we do. And we were like – where are you gonna spend the money? And she said I’m actually gonna do the Fiji trip you guys did because it sounded so fun. You have this intimate relationship with your audience on the radio that you don’t get in really any other media. That’s kind of how you kind of stay on the pulse,” Will said.
