Football Fantasies

Fall brings chilly breezes, resplendent leaves, and football-based promotions galore:

Contestants will toss footballs to win cash in the Sprint PCS $2 Million Challenge, a sweepstakes hosted by the Kansas City-based carrier. The sweeps selects a winner to participate in a toss-off that will take place during halftime of the Nokia Sugar Bowl 2000 National Championship Game on Jan. 4 at the New Orleans Superdome. One contestant gets a shot at the pot.

During the challenge, an NFL quarterback will make four throws at a Nokia phone, with each hit worth $50,000. After the fourth throw, the contestant has an opportunity to increase the amount earned by the QB 10 times if he can fire the football through a hole in a giant Nokia phone.

The contestant will be drawn from a pool of consumers who register via telephone or by visiting the Sprint PCS Web site. Events will be held at select college campuses and at Sprint PCS Centers leading up to the game, and feature football throws and video games on Nokia phone-shaped kiosks. Consumers can try out Nokia phones at the events to call in and register for the challenge.

The grand-prize winner will receive an all-expense paid trip to the Bowl game for a shot at the prize. Five first-place winners also get paid trips, too.

Finland-based Nokia is serving as the Sugar Bowl’s title sponsor for the fifth straight year. The company is touting its 2000 efforts as “one of the largest integrated college football programs in history.”

The phone maker will team with networks ABC and ESPN for an On the Road to No. 1 campaign featuring extensive advertising, promotions, and events.

The stepped-up effort coincides with the Sugar Bowl’s hosting the National Championship Game for the first time. Four Nokia Fan Recreational Vehicles will track ABC’s broadcast schedule around the country offering “the ultimate tailgating experience.” Game-goers will test both their intellectual and physical football skills to win prizes.

A sweepstakes overlay gives Nokia phone purchasers a shot at winning one of the RVs, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, a Sea-Doo watercraft, a home theater system, trips to the game, commemorative Swatch watches, and $25 prepaid gas cards. Purchasers will have to log onto a special Web site to determine if they are winners.

On the professional gridiron, San Francisco-based Visa U.S.A. celebrates its fifth year as card sponsor of the National Football League with its biggest and most integrated marketing plan to date. Under the “It’s Everywhere NFL Fans Want to Be,” tagline, the company is broadening its TV advertising to feature three executions, including a promotional spot for its “Once-in-a-Lifetime NFL Fantasies” sweepstakes (June promo).

It’s the first time Visa has incorporated a promo into its NFL ads. “We wanted to be more aggressive, and TV ads are still the most cost-effective way to reach the most fans,” says vp-advertising Matt Biespiel.

The Visa Hall of Fans promotion returns for its sophomore season, this time expanding beyond last year’s mainly p.r. campaign to include print advertising, online marketing, and direct efforts. “With the success we had last year, we felt we could do more with this and make it part of the integrated platform,” says director of event marketing George Perry.

The NFL helps out by sending info via season-ticket mailings and public-address announcements at games. Brochures are also being handed out via merchant partners such as Simon Brand Malls and Gart Sports.

TLP, Dallas, handles the promo. BBDO, New York City, created the print ad, which is running in NFL Insider. Ketchum, New York City, handles p.r.

Fans who feel they have the knowledge, enthusiasm, loyalty, and creativity to represent their team must send a photo and a one-page essay outlining their unique qualifications. The winners get flown to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH, for a special induction in January, then become part of a Visa Hall of Fans exhibit. Visa brought back last year’s 31 winners (one for each NFL team) to help with this year’s campaign.

“The fans have been great,” says Perry. “They started their own unsolicited chants of `Visa, Visa, Visa.'”

That’s loyalty for you.

Companies that want to make a cause-related statement about saving energy might want to jump on an Energy Savers program sponsored jointly by the U.S. Department of Energy and Owens Corning, the Toledo, OH-based building materials maker. In its third year, the program has been expanded to include virtually any company or organization concerned about improving energy efficiency in homes.

The effort provides pre-designed marketing materials, including an Energy Savers booklet on which partners can print their logos. Last year, when the program focused only on utilities, 162 water, gas, and electric suppliers printed 350,000 copies for promotional use. Since this year’s program began last month with a direct-mail drive, orders for 200,000 booklets have come in from citizens’ groups such as the Utah Energy Conservation Coalition, the Community Action Agency of Yam Hill County, McMinnville, OR, and five state agencies.

NBC, New York City, is busy in the retail arena with a tie-in with JCPenney, helping the Plano, TX-based retailer promote a new interactive quarterly magazine called Noise. Penney’s 84-page teen-focused magazine features articles on fashion, beauty, sports, movies, and music. The chain will distribute 3.25 million copies through its 1,150 stores nationally.

In exchange, NBC gets store exposure for its Saturday morning programming through life-sized celebrity standees and a music video to be played in juniors’ and young men’s departments. Teens who pick up the magazine or visit the Noise Web site can enter a Steal-A-Scene sweeps to try for an all expense-paid trip to Los Angeles to appear in one of NBC’s Saturday morning shows.

Colgate-Palmolive is casting for the tall reeds, linking with Operation Bass, Inc., Gilbertsville, KY, to sponsor 158 bass fishing tournaments, including the sponsor-driven Wal-Mart FLW Tour series and the Ranger Millennium M-1 tourney. Fox Sports televises the last day of that three-day event live on Nov. 7. The Wal-Mart FLW boasts 23 sponsors including Coca-Cola, Wrangler, General Mills’ Chex Mix, and Chevy Trucks.