Spalding is into a new game.
The sports equipment marketer has begun its first-ever mobile marketing campaign, a sweepstakes targeting 18- to 24-year-old basketball fans.
Consumers send text messages to Spalding with questions about basketball, then get an answer on their mobile phone. Each question that fans text to “AskMe” (27563) serves as an entry into the sweepstakes that will give away one Spalding Never Flat basketball each day, 68 balls in all.
The contest runs through May 8. Ads in basketball magazines and online at specialty sites drive fans to Spalding.com for the sweeps. KSL Media, New York, handles the campaign, using text-message service Ask Me Now to process the questions.
The promotion dovetails with Spalding’s new TV ad for Never Flat, which explains the design that keeps the ball inflated 10 times longer than regular basketballs.
A separate online sweeps will award a grand-prize $2,500 in-ground system, with hoop and ball; five first-prize winners get an NBA game ball. That random-draw sweeps runs through April 30. Springfield, MA-based Spalding is a division of Russell Corp.
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