Back Biting
Bart’s back. The mischievous cynic from The Simpsons returns for a second-straight year of hawking Butterfinger through a deal between Glendale, CA-based Nestle USA and Twentieth Century Fox Licensing, Century City, CA.
Butterfinger proved itself prescient more than 11 years ago when it tapped Bart for a successful “Nobody Better Lay a Finger on my Butterfinger” campaign just before the animated show gained national attention. It returned to The Simpsons fold last year.
A watch-and-win sweeps requires consumers to match the chalkboard message Bart scribbles on the show’s season premiere with ones printed inside the wrappers of 40 million Butterfinger and Butterfinger BBs packages. The winner will be animated and featured in an upcoming episode. Thousands of instant-win prizes include Simpsons videos, backpacks, and CD-ROMs. National TV spots, print ads, billboards, and retail circulars support. Nestle got things started in July with a retail back-to-school sweeps giving away the furniture in Bart’s room. P-O-P displays and messages on packs of Nestle Miniatures support.
The Simpsons “really has become the crown jewel of Fox,” says executive director of worldwide TV promotions Sabrina Ironside. Butterfinger is the only tie-in partner for The Simpsons this fall (aside from some possible additional work in Intel Corp.’s campaign). Fox is planning “a big 2000 initiative,” says Ironside.
Procter & Gamble’s Cover Girl brand is using music to drive cosmetic sales at Target Stores in a three-way fall promotion with Teen People. The bait to lure teen shoppers: white-hot musical quartet 98 Degrees. The Fall In Love With 98 Degrees sweeps will give teens a chance to appear in an upcoming video by the recording artists.
The October Teen People features a two-page spread announcing the sweeps that includes coupons for products from Hunt Valley, MD-based Cover Girl’s Fall In Love Collection redeemable at Target. Entry forms will also be available at displays in the cosmetic departments of 859 Target’s nationwide. Minneapolis-based Target supports the program with Cover Girl end-aisle displays featuring the October issue, giving the magazine additional distribution. Magazine rack talkers at checkout will spotlight the promo to drive people to the cosmetics section. Fall In Love packaging and the group’s latest CD will bear stickers with promotional tags.
Radio spots featuring the band and direct mail targeting more than 700,000 teenage girls caps off the effort. One grand-prize winner gets an all-expenses trip to the video session, with 120 first-prize winners receiving $100 gift certificates for Target stores. Second-prize winners get coupons for free Cover Girl products at Target.
Combine Germany’s famous Octoberfest with rock-and-roll bands and you get Beck’s Beer’s first national Roctoberfest sweepstakes. Five winners in a program staged at on- and off-premise locations will fly with a guest to the bier capital of the world – Germany, of course – for a week’s stay at a deluxe hotel and an opportunity to go backstage at a festival concert to visit one of their favorite bands. Bands performing include Showoff, Shootyz Groove, Control Freq, and Filter.
Handled by Reach Marketing, Westport, CT, Rocktoberfest launched Aug. 1 and is slated to end Oct. 31. The sweeps is supported by a month-long radio blitz and print ads in top music and men’s magazines.
In addition to the grand prize, 100 winners get a JBL Harmony high-performance music system, and 1,000 winners receive a compilation CD of songs performed at the event.
It gave new meaning to “seventh-inning stretch.”
The Lowell Spinners, the Class A minor-league affiliate of Major League Baseball’s Boston Red Sox, last month handed 30 mothers-to-be free tickets and prizes at its first-ever Birth Night.
The near-term Moms were lured in by the promise of free diapers for a year and a free birthday party next year to the first woman who went into labor. Doctors and paramedics were on hand and a childbirth coach led the crowd in breathing exercises. No winner emerged during the game, which attracted a sellout crowd of 5,000.
FTD Inc., of Downers Grove, IL, hopes to get the attention of betrotheds with The Ultimate Wedding Contest, which consumers can enter at any of FTD’s 20,000 florist shops.
Entrants must write an essay about their engagement in a promo that broke July 1. FTD will fly five finalist couples to Chicago to participate in a weekend of games and entertainment. Celebrity judges presiding over wedding-related events such as the Not Quite Newlywed Games.
The winning couple gets a nationally televised wedding aboard FTD’s Promises for Tomorrow float at the Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year’s Day. The prize includes a $10,000 check, an all-expenses honeymoon, wedding attire, and the right to bring 12 guests along for the Pasadena, CA, ceremony. The Grand Group, St. Louis, handles.
General Motors’ Buick has paired with National Geographic, Washington, DC, to encourage volunteerism through The Family of the Century contest.
Students are asked to write an essay about how their families have made a difference through volunteerism to win a grand prize of a Buick Century and a vacation to Walt Disney World. Buick will donate $10,000 in the winning family’s name to a charity of their choice. National Geographic has extended the contest to 25,000 social-studies teachers by creating an action-oriented lesson plan for grades four through eight.
Teachers are invited to tell the National Geographic Society how they used the plan in their classes to win a trip for two to Society headquarters for a behind-the-scenes look at activities there.
