Lip-Sticking

Spring has arrived (or has it) along with March Madness

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

Happy Spring! It officially arrived this morinng at 7:02. But you wouldn't know it from the weather. We're stuck in this cold pattern here in the Northeast till at least the end of March. Yesteday we even woke up to a couple inches of the wet, white stuff on the ground and it's still there. Well, at the least the dogs love it!

Today is also the start of the NCAA March Madness. Have you filled out your brackets yet? If not you can fill one out here at the official Capital One NCAA March Madness Bracket Challenge or here at Yahoo! Fantasy Sports Tourney Pick 'Em. I'm sure there are many more online you could find as well. But you need to do it today.

The first two games actually went off last night and there are two more tonight to determine who will make it into "Round of 64" which begins on Thursday. All to decide who will play in the Final Four in Atlanta at the Georgia Dome on April 6.

With Coca-Cola being a big sponsor and headquartered in Atlanta, they are hosting Bracket Town which consists of several events happening in and around Atlanta and the Georgia Dome.

The games will be broadcast on CBS and on three Turner Networks. Fans can also watch all the games live by downloading the NCAA March Madness App available in iTunes for Apple devices.

Twitter this year is helping to bring all the exciting plays to the mobile masses within a few minutes of them happening via Instant Replays. Twitter introduced the "instant replay" concept last year with ESPN for college bowl game highlights which allows users to watch videos from their phones, tablets and PCs without leaving Twitter.​ AT&T and Coke Zero are sponsoring the March Madness videos, and the replays will begin with a short video clip from either sponsor. You can follow the official Twitter page here @MarchMadness.

We assisted one of our clients with the Dunkin' Philly Madness Sweeps which they are running on their Dunkin Philly Facebook Page. They're giving fans daily chances to win college gear, Dunkin Donuts mGifts, basketball tickets, coffee for a year and a final Grand Prize of $5,000. Also for every entry, they’ll donate $1 to Coaches vs. Cancer of Philadelphia. (up to $5,000). Sweepstakes ends on April 8.

There are also still chances to win tickets to the Final Four tournament. LG Electronics is currently running their Do March Right Tip-Off Bracket Challenge on their Facebook page. The top prize consists of airfare for two to Atlanta, hotel accommodations, tickets to the semi-finals and the championship games and $500 spending money. Pretty sweet package.

So get your brackets ready today. We'll be cheering for the Syracuse Orangemen, the #4 seed in the East Division. They lost the final Big East Tournament to Louisville, who ended up getting the #1 seed spot. So you never know. At least we have some good basketball games to watch while we still wait for Spring to actually arrive!

And the winner of Super Bowl XLVII: Twitter!

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

Are you one of the estimated 108.4 million people who watched the Super Bowl this past Sunday? The Nielsen Company said Monday that the Baltimore Ravens' 34-31 victory over the San Francisco 49ers was the third most-viewed program in television history. Both the 2010 and 2011 Super Bowl games were slightly above this year hitting the 111 million mark.

While the game has now become a distant memory, if you were one of the viewers you have to admit it was extremely entertaining. Between the great brother vs. brother pregame storyline, a second half comeback by the 49's, all the ads, the tweets, the Facebook posts and Beyonce and girls performing an amazing halftime show, there was something for everyone! Add in that the drama of the lights going on in the stadium, and it made it the longest Super Bowl game in history. This gave CBS more airtime and allowed us all to chat more on social media as well as get up and stretch!

By now I'm sure everyone has watched the ads and heard and read the reviews to determine in their minds who are the winners and losers of the this year's Ad Bowl. Who really came out a winner, besides John Harbaugh and the Baltimore Ravens, is Twitter! The brand really supplanted itself as much more than just another social media network.

According to MarketingLand’s count of hashtag and Twitter mentions, 26 ads during the game itself had a Twitter reference compared to only 4 that referenced Facebook, one to Instagram, one to YouTube and not any to Google+. Last years only 8 ads mentioned Twitter. A total of 24.1 million Super Bowl related tweets were posted apart from the ad hashtags. A Twitter spokesperson reported that “By the beginning of the second half, the volume of Tweets had already surpassed last year’s Tweet total".

Coke's Super Bowl Campaign rewards viewers who engage the most

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

This Sunday Super Bowl XLII will be broadcast from New Orleans not only on the CBS TV network, but viewers can also watch it on their small screens. We can even listen to it on Sirius radio if you happen to be in your vehicle. So not only do we get to watch the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers go at it, but also Madison Ave. who will fight it out in another Ad Bowl. Two main consumer categories will again dominate the ads this year, automobiles and beverages.

Even though Pepsi is a huge advertiser this year and is sponsoring the halftime show featuring Beyonce, Coca-Cola is also back. Last year if you recall, Coke tried something new with their popular polar bears who reacted in real-time to the Bowl game’s activities and ads. Viewers got engaged by sharing their thoughts and comments to the bears’ reactions via Facebook and Twitter. So Coke learned a bit from this and is taking it one step further with this year's campaign called "Coke Chase".

The premise of the campaign is to allow viewers to determine the outcome of a “chase” in real time, along with the content of a post-Bowl commercial. The ads feature three groups of people lost in the desert; “cowboys,showgirls and badlanders". They come upon a mirage of a Coke in the distance and then compete to reach it first.

Viewers are invited to vote on who will win the Coke Chase game by visiting Cokechase.com from any screen (mobile, tablet or desktop) to view the ads and vote for their favorite team via YouTube. The winning group and all results will be revealed in a TV spot immediately following the end of the Super Bowl. Here's a peak at the Cowboys sabotage clip that is being promoted today on Coke's Facebook page.

Pizza Hut video contest winners to be featured in Super Bowl XVLII pre-game ad

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

The final two teams to make it to Super Bowl XVLII have now been determined. For the first time in Super Bowl history we will see two brothers face off against one another as head coaches which will take place down in New Orleans on February 3.

The Baltimore Ravens' John Harbaugh and San Francisco 49ers' Jim Harbaugh are providing this great brother vs. brother pregame storyline in what now is being called "Harbowl" or "Superbaugh". I'm just curious to know who their parents, Jim and Jackie Harbaugh, who currently live in Santa Clara, California, will be routing for!

I started my review of this year's Super Bowl promotional marketing campaigns a couple of week's ago with this blog post: Are you ready for Super Bowl XVLII? The marketing hype has begun, followed up with this one, Wonderful Pistachios joins Super Bowl Advertisers and teams up with Psy Gangam Style . Here's a new one to continue with the tradition.

Pizza Hut launched The Hut Hut Hut Contest  offering winners the opportunity to star in their commercial that will run during the CBS Super Bowl Pregame Show just minutes before kickoff. The Contest was initially launched on December 10 on the Pizza Hut Facebook Page and was accepting entries up until this past Sunday. Pizza Hut is in the process of contacting the winners now.

Wonderful Pistachios joins Super Bowl Advertisers and teams up with Psy Gangam Style

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

This past weekend we got to witness some great NFL football playoff games, with the first on Saturday between the Denver Broncos and the Baltimore Ravens which went into overtime. Unfortunately it didn't quite end the way I wanted and we now won't have a Manning in this year's Super Bowl Game.

We're down to four teams standing: Baltimore Ravens vs. the New England Patriots in the AFC and the San Fransisco 49er's vs. the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC. Who will make it to the Super Bowl XLVII game on February 3 in New Orleans this year?

Last week I started my review of promotional marketing campaigns focused on this year's Super Bowl game with this blog post: Are you ready for Super Bowl XVLII? The marketing hype has begun. As is tradition with my posts, I'm going to continue covering some of the marketing hype up to the big game!

Wonderful Pistachios will be joining the list of Super Bowl advertisers for the first time with a 30-second spot featuring the now famous Psy, star of the “Gangnam Style” video that was the first to break 1 billion views on YouTube. This will also mark the first time that Psy will be in a U.S. TV ad which will air in the game’s third quarter.

The ad won't be previewed prior to the game, but according to Marc Seguin, VP of marketing for Wonderful Pistachios, it takes the brand’s long-running “Get Crackin’” campaign to new levels which he reported that they have invested more than $100 million in the four years that it’s been running.

Are you ready for Super Bowl XVLII? The marketing hype has begun.

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

It's January and that means were now in the playoffs of the NFL season and looking forward to Super Bowl XVLII which is scheduled to be played on February 3rd at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, home of the Saints. The game will be broadcast by CBS which has been charging a record high of $3.7-$3.8 million for each 30-second ad. Some of the big brands have already started rolling out their marketing campaigns. To help get the most for their money they again are including sweepstakes and contest promotions. Here's a look a couple of them.

Pepsi has teamed up with Beyoncé who has been chosen as the top performer for the Super Bowl halftime show. The Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show Promotion launched on December 29th and invites participants to enter by uploading images of themselves in a series of specific poses that may be used in the on-air intro video as Beyonce takes to the field. Each day, up until January 19, participants can upload up to 50 photos that follow the "Assignment of the Day"to this mobile-optimized website. The Pepsi Photo Gallery is already full of photos of people jumping in the air, tapping their feet, shouting, bopping their head, and more! Here's the promo video:

Marketing firm offers a win-win solution for local high school athletics and merchants with the Safe Driving Sweepstakes

By Guest Blogger Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

It's now officially Fall, so we can talk about the beautiful fall foilage and of course sports! It's the one time of year that we have so many different ones going on during the same season. Ooops, except for NHL Hockey!!!! Us football fans think things are really, really bad with the NFL's replacement refs. At least we still have a season. Between the two leagues it's looking really, really ugly! I think we need to throw some women in the mix to negotiate. Where's Hillary when we really need her?

Anyhow, we do have college teams along with our local high school and little league teams to keep us interested. Some of my friends with younger kids have been traveling all over the region to attend their kids' hockey, soccer, and volleyball games as well as tennis and swim meets. My husband and I have been there.

This season I am working with a company called Foxwood Sports that offers a marketing solution designed exclusively for high school athletics. They develop marketing programs that offer merchants an opportunity to promote their business locally while also supporting the high school athletic programs. According to Foxwood Sports, most athletic directors claim that they just don't have enough hours in the day to focus on major fundraising. This is where the marketing programs from Foxwood Sports help them to be more productive while raising funds.

We are assisting Foxwood Sports with a new marketing program that they just launched in northwest Arkansas called the NWA Buick GMC Safe Driving Program. Students from the high schools are enlisted to pass out these "Don't Text and Drive Cards" at the weekly sporting events. Participants then must agree to the accept the Don't Text and Drive pledge in order to be eligible for a chance to win one of six weekly gift cards in the Safe Driving Sweepstakes. They do this by texting a keyword provided on the card that is specific to that school to a short code. They then receive a reply message confirming that they have entered and inviting them to stay opt-ed in to the program for a chance to win the grand prize of $2,500 at the end of the season.

All participants will then receive a weekly safe driving message from the sponsor, NWA Buick GMC Dealers, along with a second message that informs them that the week's winners have been posted along with link to the online landing page that lists them. Here's the link that includes the latest winners, www.hstext.com/nwa. The program follows the guidelines issued by the Mobile Marketing Association and all participants are given the opportunity to opt-out of the text messages at any time.

This program already appears to be a win-win for both the high school athletic departments and the local merchants. Participants must be 14 years old or older to enter and local residents, so it does target high school students along with their families. If it helps to raise awareness of the texting and driving issue, then that's an added benefit as well. Here's another safe driving promotion that I came a cross that OnStar is running on their Facebook page. The  Rules of the Road Sweepstakes invites participants to create their own "Rule of the Road" and share it on their timeline.

So get out there and support some of your local high school teams while enjoying the fall season.

Another NFL season kicks off along with the Time with Tebow Sweepstakes

By Guest Blogger Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

We are now full swing into the new NFL Football season. My two teams, the Buffalo Bills and the New York Giants, got off to a very rough start in Week 1. But they both bounced back looking like different teams in Week 2 to take home a "W". There are 14 more games now to go, so we'll see which team will take the field this week.

The New York Jets were the team that made an embarrassment out of the Buffalo Bills in week 1. They brought out Tim Tebow for the first time as a New York Jet. The Tebow Wildcat play has been receiving quite a bit of hype and it appears that the Jets will continue to use him in this formation. So I'm obviously not a Jets fan, but I am interested to see how Tebow does this season especially since we have just launched one of our biggest sweepstakes for a client that just so happens to feature Tim Tebow.

The FRS Time with Tebow Sweepstakes is offering people the chance to "Win Time with Tebow" and over 1,500 other prizes. FRS has a team of athletes that champion the products that includes Tim Tebow as well as Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong, and Captain of the US Women’s National Soccer Team Christie Rampone. The products can be purchased online at their website, www.FRS.com, or in various retail locations throughout the country.

The way to enter the sweepstakes is to purchase a specialty marked bottle or package of FRS and look for a promotion code that is either under the cap or printed inside the packaging. We generated over 3 million codes for FRS to use on their products and created this special sweepstakes landing page located here at www.frsfuelstebow.com.

Participants gain an entry into the sweepstakes with every code that they submit. So the more codes they get, the more chances they have to win. The Grand Prize winner will receive a trip for two to meet Tim Tebow plus thousands of other prizes will be awarded including autographed jerseys, footballs and helmets. Plus, everyone who enters will receive a coupon by mail for a free bottle or can of FRS.

Because people have to purchase the product to get the code we have included an AMOE (Alternate Means of Entry) which is detailed in the rules. People can write to us to receive a code by mail. So we are complying with the sweepstakes "No Purchase Necessary" mandate.

I am curious to see how well this promotion does and if it fluctuates according to how hot or not Tebow and the Jets are. As a fan, I hope they're not. But as a marketer, I hope the program is a success.

Let's Go Bills and see if we can make it back to the play-offs for the first time in 12 seasons!

Loving the 2012 London Summer Olympics, TDS Torch Trivia Sweeps and Nike stealing some Gold

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

With the Games of the 2012 London Summer Olympics still in full swing this week, it's just natural for me to continue writing about them. I've been watching the tapped events every night in prime time and some live during the day and loving it all. Over the weekend I had the TV turned on to NBC Olympics that was showing a field hockey event while my iPad was on the kitchen counter just underneath the TV streaming live the beach volleyball game that gave Misty May and Kerri Walsh another win. Today the two champions go for the Gold against the younger USA team. This game I want to try and follow live which starts at 4pm ET today.

According to some stats that were released earlier this week, NBC is doing very well with capturing viewers through the live video streams. Those using the NBC Olympics Live Extra app, like me, have totaled 7.0 million users (I'm so glad I bought my iPad before the Games started). NBC says 6.2 million phone/tablet devices have been verified for the games. Five Olympic events had over 1 million live streams which were last Tuesday’s women’s gymnastics team gold medal final with nearly 1.5 million. Last Thursday night two swimming events pulled over 1 million, one when Michael Phelps won the gold in the men’s 200 individual medley with 1.2 million streams. All-around U.S. gold medal gymnastics winner Gabby Douglas had almost 1.1 million streams.

I've been writing about some of the marketing efforts from the official Olympic sponsors that have launched various campaigns around the games. There has also been, as there always is, a huge amount of advertising and marketing from those who are not sponsors, otherwise known as Ambush Marketing.

Nike, who is not an official Olympic sponsor, has recently released a new TV ad that promotes athletes in towns around the world named “London". They have not actually stated the words "2012 London Olympics", but of course with the timing you can’t avoid linking the brand to the actual events. Adidas paid around $60 million for their official Olympic brand sportswear category partnership. The Nike "Find Your Greatness" ad now has almost 4.5 million views on their YouTube channel! So is this great marketing or ambush marketing?

I actually just assisted one of our clients with running a sweepstakes campaign on their Facebook page that could fall into this category. TDS Telecommunications is a telcom provider offering Internet, TV and phone services in 31 states, so if you are a customer of theirs you can stream the live events. They are running the TDS Torch Trivia Sweepstakes now through August 12 for their Facebook fans. Each day they post a Trivia question on their Facebook page and a fan can enter the sweepstakes every day and answer the question. We are randomly drawing one winner a week, for a total of three winners who will each receive $250.

Here's today's question: "Allison Felix, who runs in the final of the women’s 200M today, is coached by a track and field legend. He has produced at least one gold medalist in track and field in every Summer Olympics since 1984. Name him."

TDS Telecom has seen over a thousand new Facebook fans since the promotion started and the page continues to gain new Likes. Many people are engaging with the page everyday, which is really the key measurement. I set this up for them again using the Shortstack App which provides a mobile friendly link that TDS has put in their daily posts, therefore enabling people to also enter from their Smartphone or Tablet. BTW, Shortstack just announced that you can now embed the same app on a website as well which is pretty cool.

I'm going to wrap up my marketing coverage of the 2012 Olympic Games today. I would like to congratulate ALL the athletes who have participated in the games. Yesterday we saw a local Western New York woman, Jenn Suhr, win the Gold in the Women's Pole Vault. It's the personal stories like Jenn's that keep us so engaged with these games. Some of the athletes, like Michael Phelps, have now become legends and some others, like Missy Franklin and Gabby Douglas, have become household names whose lives will change significantly going forward. I will miss them all and wish them the very best. Thank you for sharing your stories and lives with us all.

Chobani Yogurt is Naturally Powering Team USA

By Guest Blogger Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

So have you been following the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London? How can you not! There are the live streams of all the events, numerous articles and stories, athlete interviews, tweets, Facebook posts, YouTube videos, mobile apps and of course the prime time tapped broadcasts of the events on NBC. This year's Olympics have had their share of controversy already for sure. The biggest being the fact that NBC showed a tapped delay of the Opening Ceremonies and we had to wait till midnight Eastern time to see Sir Paul close the show.

I am in agreement that in today's social media global world, especially with Twitter, that we shouldn't be expected to wait patiently for NBC to show us taped coverage just so they can get the bigger advertising bucks! I realize that they pay an enormous fee to broadcast the games, but why not provide us both? At least they could have started showing the Opening Ceremonies during the Nightly News broadcast at 6:30 ET, instead of waiting till 8 pm! Oh well, it's history now. The excitement of seeing the athletes win their medals after a lifetime of their hard work is worth it all.

I've been writing about some of the major Olympic Sponsors in my past posts (here, here and here), but besides the Official Sponsors of the Olympic Games, there are numerous sponsors of Team USA. One of them is Chobani, the now number #1 selling Greek Yogurt in the U.S. and Canada. Their recent success has enabled them to be a first-time sponsor, the Official Yogurt of Team USA. They are a Greek yogurt brand founded by a Turkish immigrant, Hamdi Ulukaya, who turned out to be an American entrepreneurial success story. But most importantly to us in Western New York State, they opened their U.S. headquarters not far from Rochester in a town called New Berlin and now have 1,200 plus employees.

Chobani's Olympic marketing campaign, “Proudly With You” created by Leo Burnett New York, tells the story of how the cooperative efforts of employees, farmers and the local community enabled Chobani’s rapid success. A main component of the campaign is the TV spot which shows the Chobani community coming together to build a giant outdoor LED screen to watch the Olympics at a farm in central New York near their headquarters, interspersed with action shots of the six Olympic and Paralympic athletes being sponsored by the brand. Watch it here.

The spot first aired during the Olympic Opening Ceremony and Chobani hosted a viewing party for their employees, farmers and local residents.

Chobani's Facebook page serves as a hub featuring the #chobanipowered app that features numerous videos including behind the scene shots of creating the TV spot as well as interviews with the sponsored athletes. The page also includes an interactive mosaic showcasing Chobani fans’ own Facebook, Twitter and Instagram submissions, using the hashtag #chobanipowered. Chobani invites fans to "Share how YOU'RE #chobanipowered and win an official Team Chobani pin!". The Facebook page also currently features a Sweepstakes for a chance to win one of 20 cases of their blended flavors yogurt.

Today is Day 5 of the games. It will be hard to top yesterday's gold medal win by the USA girls gymnastics team. Congrats to the "Fabulous Five".

It’s now been sixteen years since the “Magnificent Seven” made history by becoming America’s first women’s team to win the Gold back in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. I was working with Kodak at the time who was a major Olympic Sponsor and who also sponsored the individual teams that year. We developed account specific promotions for much of Kodak's customers. The drug chain known as Revco at the time was given the Women's Gymnastics Team. We created a special poster that featured Shannon Miller, Dominique Dawes and Dominique Moceanu that was given as a free premium with purchase of specially marked Kodak film packages. I still have a copy stored in my attic someplace.

Oh, now I got myself started about Kodak. How much as changed! Wonder who will be sponsoring the Games and the teams 16 years from now in the year 2028? These games will feature unknown athletes that are just little kids today. And who will be the host country? Anyone want to take a guess? Go Team USA!