We're just about at half-way through the baseball season and I realized I haven't written any posts this year regarding a MLB promotion. Last year I wrote quite a few. This post last May was about MLB teaming up with Indiana Jones on the release on the new film sequel. This post last July was all about Baby Ruth's User-Generated "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" video contest. Then almost two years ago to the day I wrote this post about the MLB and MasterCard promotion that included the MLB Dreams Sweepstakes and another user-generated contest.

So I really felt compelled today to write about this promotion that's taking place this evening, July 10th. It's doesn't include a major interactive promotion or user-generated contest. It is just a pretty creative promotional event. And where else would it take place, but in New York City.

Wise potato chips will be attempting to to set the Guinness World Record for the most potato chips ever crunched at once at the New York Mets' new stadium, Citi Field. The Mets will be playing the Cincinnati Reds tonight as the Big City Crunch gets underway. Every fan entering the new ballpark will be handed a .75-oz. bag of Wise Potato Chips. At a designated time, instructions will be given to open the packages and, when given the go-ahead, to start crunching.

"As New York's favorite snack food, it's only natural for us to support one of New York's favorite teams, the New York Mets," said Jolie Weber, Wise Vice President, Brand Marketing. "We developed The Big City Crunch to give Mets fans -- the most vocal and passionate fans in baseball -- a chance to be a part of history ... a loud history

Representatives from Wise have been in and around the area driving a Wise-wrapped van and distributing Wise Potato Chips. They also have been getting consumers to try the Wise "Spin the Wheel" game where players were given the chance to win Big City Crunch-branded merchandise, as well as tickets to tonight's game.

Representatives of Guinness World Records will be on hand tonight to record the occasion and, if all necessary criteria are met, will certify that a world record has been set.

The promotion was developed to increase awareness for the chips and leverage Wise’s sponsorship as the official potato chip and Cheez Doodle of the New York Mets. Wise's sports marketing agency, Source Communications, came up with the promotion which is a complement to a season-long advertising presence at Citi Field, including outfield and LED ads for Wise brands.  A New York local print, outdoor, TV and radio ad campaign promoting the Big City Crunch and featuring Mets shortstop Jose Reyes, began back in May and will run through tonight's event.

They even have some social media integrated into the mix by creating a Twitter page. So we can follow them on Twitter here to find out if they're successful or not. If anyone can make noise, its New York baseball fans. Yes, I'm a New Yorker and a Mets fan (but not a fan of that other New York team)!

Today is Wednesday, therefore it is again my guest blogger day over at the Lipsticking blog. I first started writing over there over a year ago and one of my first posts I wrote was this post about a really cool promotional event that Hershey's sponsored and executed with an interesting marketing firm called House Party to help launch their new Hershey's Bliss Chocolate line. Well I had to write about House Party again because I wanted to share info about this other party with the Lipsticking readers since the blog is all about marketing to women. The party is called Warner's Fit-to-a-T House Party. Here is the post for you readers as well.

House Party™ integrates actual social events that happen in the real w orld with social media in the online world. One of their parties actually consists of thousand parties on one day which take place across the country and include an exclusive brand experience at the center of the action. These specially designed parties are sponsored by a leading brand and take place in the homes of carefully selected consumer hosts who can invite their friends, family, neighbors, classmates , co-workers, whoever they wish, to experience these uniquely fun parties and the products they feature.

Warner's wanted to sponsor bra fitting parties to help support the launch of their new Invisible Bliss bra which is designed for women to wear under t-shirts. So House Party recruited 1,000 hosts for this event and also got Redbook on board as a co-sponsor.

House Party's CEO, Kitty Kolding, shared this with us the following: “The experts at Warner Bras have data that show that most women do not wear the correct bra size nor do they know how to select bras that fit them perfectly. So we worked with Warner Bras to design and deploy a national program of parties that gave women a trusted setting – the home of a close friend – in which they could learn, share and find the perfect bra. And at the same time, they had fun and shared that fun on the event website that ties all the parties together. To make it work, we did what we always do which is make a brand or product experience into an authentic, legitimately fun social gathering that delivers real value to consumers and extremely powerful marketing tools to our Fortune 500 clients.” 

Each host received a party kit that included a DVD explaining the subtleties of bra fitting, a tape measure, two sample bras, some REDBOOK/Warner's T-shirts, "Boost Your Breasts" exercise tip sheets and a Redbook article about girlfriend get-togethers. Also, to help promote sales of the new Invisible Bliss bra they provided two-for-one coupons for the hosts to give to their party attendees. In the post-event period, House Party reminded partiers to go to the store and get inside one of those bras.

House Party's technology platform hosts a custom microsite for each event, sending party hosts reminders and tips, and letting them upload photos and videos during every phase from party-planning to the post-event wrap-up. The microsite includes a group blog that hosts can leave comments about their event. Here's a few that I liked:

Shannon Vasque wrote: "This has got to be the funnest party ever! All the girls agreed this was their first time being measured in front of others!! I had fun being the "fitter" and demonstrating the exercises!! Everyone was surprised with their size results." The DVD was okay, but a little hard to follow. The bra fit me so I was able to model the before and after. The coupons should be redeemed soon as I told them they expired at the end of the month. The bra really feels nice on and to the touch. It looks great too! The t-shirts were great, I wore mine shopping today! Thank you! Can't wait for the next house party. I was able to make new friends in my building. A great ice breaker for sure!!"

Sweet Lisa wrote: "It was a super evening...we had margaritas, Mexican food and bra fittings...took bra cup sizes as they came through the door and then awarded the free samples to the ones who fit those cups...the t-shirts were a big hit, too! We even did a drawing for the Redbook magazine. Thank you Warners, Redbook and House Party!"

Miz Leeza wrote: "We had a nice get together which ended up being coed. Why shouldn't gentlemen understand more about ladies lingerie? A nice social event for all of us young and old."

So from the many comments that I read on the blog and all the photos that were uploaded I'd say it was a pretty fun and successful event. Now I only wish that they'd do it again because I could really use a good fitting myself!

The 2009 top spot went to Catapult Action-Biased Marketing which is headed up by COO Paul Kramer, a well-known name in the promotional agency circle. They reported $28.5 million in 2008 U.S. net revenue, a 69% increase over 2006. The growth came from mostly three areas: a new interactive discipline, geographic expansion and additional work for existing clients.

Catapult Interactive debuted in January 2007 as a way to round out the agency’s services and has proven to be a “great engine” for organic growth, stated Bill Hewson, president, Interactive. As a result the agency expanded its work for its clients, including Pedigree, Intel and Subway.

Subway is a longtime client who the agency first developed a relationship with about six years ago, working on merchandising at its restaurants. That work has expanded to national programs, including Subway Scrabble, a popular instant-win game promotion that incorporates hundreds of millions of game pieces on Subway cups and sub wraps. Each year, the agency has worked on improving response by incorporating new best practices. Listed here are their Eights Ways to Improve the ROI of Online Games of Chance. The game is scheduled to start up again in August.

Earlier this year Catapult was also awarded the Best in Show in the 2009 Promo Interactive Marketing Awards for its Pedigree Million Dog Mosaic campaign. The campaign generated funding for a new Pedigree foundation dedicated to helping dogs find good homes. I can remember seeing those ads and wanting to go out immediately and adopt those dogs! Catapult created a promotional website which received about 1 million page views and where people uploaded 55,000 photos of their dogs. These photos were then woven into a mosaic image of a cute puppy. Each time a new photo was uploaded, Pedigree donated $1 to the foundation.

Catapult was also a finalist in four categories in the 2008 Pro Awards for its Pedigree Dog Adoption campaign: Best Multi-Discipline Campaign, Best Cause-Based Promotion, Best Campaign Targeting a Micro Audience, and Best Creative.

Another long time client is Australian Wine brands Rosemount Estate and Lindemans which has since grown to include additional brands such as Beringer, Meridian, Bohemian Highway and Little Penguin. Catapult struck a deal for the Rosemount brand with Gordon Ramsay, the star of the Fox Network reality cooking show Hell’s Kitchen. Later this month when the show premieres on July 21 the Rosemount brand will be integrated into it with retail promotions around the placement. “When you have a relationship with a company and an understanding about how they work and what their objectives are, you can add value to other parts of their business or brands,” said Matthe Jonas, their client and President of West.

One of Catapult’s core strengths has been shopper marketing. “In today’s marketplace you need to have programs that are as appealing to the shopper as they are to the retailer,” Kramer says. “We influence what people actually do, not what they say they will do.”

Congratulations to the team at Catapult. We'll be keeping an eye of what other exciting integrated promotional marketing programs they launch in the upcoming year.

NOTE: Catapult announced today, July 7th, that Paul Kramer has been named CEO. Kramer has worked as the agency’s COO since its founding in 2005. “Paul has been integral to our success since joining D.L. Ryan Companies as a managing director in 1990,” said David Ryan, founder and CEO of D.L. Ryan Cos. “His career has been marked by an unwavering ability to create effective and memorable sales and marketing programs for world-class marketers across a broad range of industries.” Congratulations to Paul.

Happy 4th of July! With Independence Day falling on a Saturday this year many of us Americans had Friday off as a gift of a long summer weekend. However, the weather has not been acting like summer. We had a very wet and cook week. They have promised us sun today, but I saw just a little peak of it as it was rising this morning and not much now. However I'm still optimistic since we again have plans to visit some friends who have a place on Canandaigua Lake today, one of New York's magnificent Finger Lakes

Today, Lady Liberty who has watched over the New York Harbor for over a century once again opens her crown to the public. Visits to the crown and pedestal were suspended after September 11, 2001 as a security precaution. The pedestal re-opened to visitors in 2004.

Visitors can climb 354 steps from the ground level in the pedestal lobby to the observation deck in the crown. Two narrow, intertwining staircases in a double-helix design are the paths up and down. If your interested in making the climb, beware it's hot up there.

The Statue of Liberty will remain open for the next two years before closing again for additional safety maintenance.Tickets can be purchased at www.statuecruises.com.

If you're not in NYC and if the weather doesn't cooperate there's always the movie theaters.

There's Public Enemies staring Johnny Depp sho plays legendary Depression-era outlaw John Dillinger, the charismatic bank robber whose raids made him a folk hero to much of the downtrodden public and the No. 1 target of the fledgling FBI and its top agent, Melvin Purvis (played by Christian Bale). I'm a big Johnny Depp fan, so I'll see this sooner or later. 

 Also opening is the animated Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Unlike Public Enemies, this film has a host of entertainment marketing partners including McDonald's who has the cute licensed characters in their Happy Meal program along with a fun, promotional website. Popsicle is also on board with a fun online promotional game for kids called the Slow Melt Game in which kids can smash the treats in order to help Scrat enjoy them.

So whatever your pleasure this weekend, I hope you have a good one and stay safe! BTW - It looks like the sun is coming out!

Last week I wrote this post about the new Wildfire App that enables marketers to easily promote their interactive promotions on social media platforms such as Facebook and MySpace. The real benefit that I pointed out is the viral marketing component that social networks enable. 

This prompted me to utilize a term that I first used a year or so ago called SocialSweeps. I define SocialSweeps as an interactive promotion, such as a sweepstakes, contest or instant-win game, that integrates with at least one social media platform to help create awareness and buzz.

Interactive promotions are powerful ways to motivate interaction on the Internet. They are highly measurable and most of the time can be very effective when integrated with the right incentive, however they certainly can't achieve defined objectives if proper awareness of the promotion is not created.

So now by integrating a promotion with the viral features of social media you can spread the word about your promotion and your company far more widely and cost effectively than ever before. I believe it is this type of marketing that can create positive brand awareness and is a perfect fit with many types of social media, especially social networks.

The benefits of a SocialSweeps Promotion to consumers are strong. People love the chance to win! Fifty percent of online users enter sweepstakes at least once a month, 25% enter weekly and only 20% of internet users never enter sweepstakes. In fact, entering promotions such as sweepstakes and contests is one of the most popular online activities, second only to activities like search and email.

By integrating promotions with social media it enables consumers to easily inform their friends about your promotion and these friends can in turn inform their friends. On social network sites like Facebook, newsfeeds are generated when consumers interact with a promotion, so for every person that enters, potentially hundreds more will also see it and have the opportunity to interact.

For marketers and business owners, a SocialSweeps promotion can be a highly cost effective way to build your database and start a dialog with your customers. It is also a great way to drive traffic to a social network "fan" page, a blog, or a website. According to Forrester Research, companies that run sweepstakes have 50% more fans on their social network pages than those that don’t. 

I've been covering more and more examples here on my blog of brands and companies that have executed interactive promotions integrated with a social media strategy. If you click on the Social Media Category and/or Interactive Promotions category you can easily find most of them. 

Now overall social media marketing by businesses and organizations has been exploding. Just a look at some of the latest stats and it will clearly tell you why.

The social media audience in the U.S. currently totals 122 million, or 64% of the total Internet audience, according to the research firm comScore, Inc., and social network usage globally exceeds Web-based email usage, says Nielsen. Big brands are engaging with their customers through these channels and well as local firms and retailers.

The amount of time people spend on social networking and blog sites also continues to climb, with the total minutes jumping 82% year-over-year in May 2009. Per person, that time increased 67% over the same period, according to Nielsen.

Recent stats released by comScore for May, 2009 show that Facebook is currently the fastest growing social network on the Internet and has finally surpassed MySpace in the number of active members in the U.S. with over 70 million and close to 250 million worldwide. Facebook recently let members choose their own “vanity URL’s” and had 5.75 million usernames grabbed up in the first two days. I grabbed mine, did you?

Twitter topped the list as the fastest growing Web brand in May, increasing 1448%, from 1.2 million unique visitors in May 2008 to 18.2 million in 2009. The growth, however, is beginning to slow, increasing only 7% from April. Twitter is a great tool that businesses can use to connect with customers both by posting info and by monitoring what is being said about them and their competitors.

So now that I shared with you some of my "pitch" I'd like to ask for your input and suggestions. I'm in the process of finalizing the description of what a SocialSweeps Program entails and getting ready to market these services as I prepare to relaunch my website. If you're interested in learning more please contact me. Would love to hear any of your thoughts and comments in order to incorporate into my thinking while I'm still in my "beta" stage. Thanks for your interest.

Courtesy of Imeem.com.

Doctor My Eyes - Jackson 5

You can also listen to it here on YouTube.

I didn't get a chance to write a blog post yesterday because I was preparing for my daughter's graduation party which we hosted at our home. I believe it was a success and think that everyone had a good time. We were a bit anxious when some huge thunderstorms came rambling through late yesterday morning and some hail was reported. But it cleared up and ended up being a beautiful night.

I've been trying to write my Friday/Saturday posts about interactive promotions tied in with entertainment marketing since there as so many big moives released during the summer season. However, I already wrote earlier about the Transformers, Transform Your Dad, a big promotion Kmart did for Father's Day. The movie opened nationwide this past Wednesday instead of Friday and it's been way in the lead at the box office. So there really isn't another movie coming even close to it this week to report on.

What has been big this week is the start of the second season of HBO's TrueBlood which premiered last Sunday. HBO really used social media in some innovative ways to promote the return of season 2 such as creating a blog called BloodCopy which is written by true vampires and creating a microsite, The American Vampire League, which is all about protecting the rights of vampires. Then there is The Fellowship of the Sun which is the ministry created to protect their members against vampires. HBO also set up Facebook Fan Pages for each: here's the BloodCopy Fan Page, the AVL Fan Page and the one for Fellowship. Fans can follow them here on Twitter as well as various vampire character pages such as @SomniusX. Plus they have developed this BloodCopy Wiki.

HBO is running the Escape the Everyday Sweepstakes with a grand prize of $10,000 towards HBO, TV service, Internet, phone and so more courtesy of HBO. There are also instant win prizes consisting of the True Blood Season 1 DVDs, Fangtasia, Fellowship of the Sun and American Vampire League t-shirts and True Blood Logo mugs. The sweepstakes began on May 23 and ends July 3. 

To play the game you first have to choose if you want to be on the side of the mortals or the vampires. There's a viral marketing component to this as well where visitors can "Suck in Your Friends" by sending them an email post card inviting them to play or posting this widget on their Facebook page or many other social media options.

BMW's Mini teamed up with HBO with a co-branded print and digital ad campaign. Their Mini was one of several real brands being pitched to vampires. The campaign is comprised of national print, online and out-of-home outlets. The ads featuring blood-red versions of the Mini Cooper and Mini Clubman, have headlines like: "Feel the Wind in Your Fangs" and "Type GO." Digital ads ran on Yahoo, CNN, AOL, the TrueBlood home page on HBO.com, and the show's microsites.

Today being Wednesday was my guest blogging day over at Lip-Sticking.com. It was also the day that we attended the high school graduation ceremony of my youngest daughter. So since I've been feeling a bit melancholy today I wrote about her in my post and how time keeps going by way too fast. So please hop on over and read it which also talks about some recent online visitation stats that comScore released this week that pertain to this season of gifting, whether it was Mother's Day, Father's Day, Graduations or Weddings.

As I anticipated tonight I took many photos during and after the ceremony of my daughter and her friends. Many with her posing in groups with friends in their cap & gown and many of her with just one special friend. Some of these girls she went to school with since kindergarten and we've gotten to be close friends with some of the parents as well. Will we stay in touch? Perhaps with some, but it will not be the same. 

I thought the valedictorian did a great job tonight with her speech in which she talked quite a bit about relationships and questioning if they will stay in touch with their fellow classmates. I was thinking that they have it easier now since we didn't have Facebook and Twitter and blogs back in the day that I graduated. In fact many of us are just now reconnecting with our long lost high school classmates now after many years. Boy, how times have changed. 

My daughter attended an all female private school, so they were a small, close-knit class, even though there were specific groups that hung around with each other. The valedictorian made jokes about how they didn't need to worry about their appearance and could really be themselves because they were all just girls. She ended her talk using words from St. Gabriel, the Archangel "Do Not Be Afraid".  So, let us all remember that as we move forward in the pursuit of new opportunities and challenges that we face in our lives and in our business.

So congratulations again to my daughter, Alex, on her graduation day and here's to the next chapter in your life. We are very proud of the smart, young woman that you have become.

I first wrote this post called Interactive Promotions Together with Blogs Create a Winning Combination back in February of 2008. Well now that social media has really gone mainstream, it's not just integrating promotions with blogs, but also with social networks like Facebook, which is now the largest social network, and Twitter, which has become the fastest growing web brand. Back when I wrote this post I coined the term "Social Sweeps" and I've seen quite a lot of these types of promotions make their appearance since then.

Interactive promotions are highly measurable and most of the time can be very effective when integrated with the right incentive, however they certainly can't achieve defined objectives if proper awareness of the promotion is not created. Well now this new company called Wildfire Interactive has created a web tool and Facebook application that can help do just that. With the Wildfire App you can create an integrated promotional campaign for your brand on Facebook, Ning, MySpace and your website that includes a sweepstakes or a user generated contest.

Wildfire is currently in beta and it's been by invite only. I requested an invite, so I'm on board and just dying to try out a first promotion utilizing it on Facebook. I've got a couple of small programs I'm working on that may be a good fit for this.

A current promotion that I entered and have promoted on my Facebook Page is for an adventure travel agency called Access Trips that's based in New Zealand. They are utilizing the Wildfire App to promote their Brazil Surfing Trip Sweepstakes. So I entered the sweeps and invited two of my friends on Facebook to join me if I win. Then I invited some of my other Facebook friends to enter the sweepstakes.

AT&T has integrated the Wildfire App into one of their big summer promotions. Up until just yesterday, June 22, golf fans could enter the AT&T “Favorite Foursome” sweepstakes to win a VIP trip for themselves and three friends to the final two days of the 2009 AT&T National Tournament, to be played July 4 and 5 at the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, MD.

AT&T offered three different ways to get into the game. One was through mobile using any wireless carrier in which fans could text TRIP to 21234 to be automatically entered for a chance to win. They could also visit AT&T’s Facebook page in which they could enter using the Wildfire App and they could also choose to invite three of their Facebook friends to join their own “Favorite Foursome” and in exchange could get a special AT&T national sweepstakes graphic posted to their Facebook Wall.

The third method of entry into the Favorite Foursome Sweepstakes was by clicking through a banner ad at the AT&T Fan Zone web site and filling out an entry form there. The winner will be selected by a random drawing from all the entry methods and win four round-trip flights to Washington DC, two nights of lodging, transportation passes and access to the Grey Goose lounge at the event, and a $400 gift certificate redeemable at the competition’s Front 9 merchandise area, among other perks. I entered, so wish me luck!

The new twist that the Wildfire App brings to the promotion is the viral marketing component on Facebook. Those that have hundreds of friends on Facebook can promote it on their wall and very easily invite their friends. So I believe it is this type of brand awareness that is a perfect fit for social networks. If anyone would like more information you can contact me or Wildfire. I would be happy to toss around some ideas on how it may be a good fit with your marketing objectives and get one of these started!

This is a photo of my dad, Alfred, with me taken back in early March of this year. I went down to visit my parents who now live in the Myrtle Beach area for a long weekend and we had some beautiful weather. We're sitting out by the pool here in my sister Fran's backyard.

My father has been a hero this past year. He's been supporting my mom who has cancer and who had to go back on chemo treatment after a recent surgery to remove her gal bladder. So we're are all so grateful to my Dad for all he's been doing to help our mom and all that he will continue to do. My father has always been so strong and supportive during any major crisis in our lives. It was always the little stuff that we fretted over too much. We love you Dad!

So perhaps I'll win the top prize and get to take everyone out to dinner on my next visit down south. If not then at least my sister will hopefully show this to my Dad since he still doesn't have his own computer.

Now back to the promotion. I also have to tell you a little bit about our sponsor. UPrinting.com is a leading online provider of business cards, color brochures and mailing postcards. They started this Blog Sponsorship Program earlier this year and invited me to register, so I did. I didn't participate in their first promotion in which they gave away $100 last month. Now I wasn't going to participate in this one either, but they were persistent and sent me another email message that they were extending the deadline for Father's Day till June 29. The winner will be selected on Tuesday, June 30th, so wish me luck. The next one is a Summer Photo Contest, so stay tuned for that.

You can learn more about UPrinting and their Blog Sponsorship Program on their UPrinting Blog. They wrote that they weren't sure at first how bloggers would react, "but that all changed during March and April. Applications from those that had participated in our competitions and promotions began streaming in at an alarming rate." So if you're a blogger and interested in registering to participate in their Blog Sponsorship program you can here.

My fellow Kodak friends should take note of this promotion. Hopefull they'll see it posted on my Facebook page! Many other brands are starting to participate in social media marketing programs like this for bloggers. If anyone is interested in doing something like this please contact me. We have a great network of women bloggers and readers you can tap into through the Lip-Sticking.com network. And again, a Happy Father's Day to my Dad and to my husband, Kevin, and all you dads!