Kicking and Screaming for Canadian Football
The Great White North division of BIC is using its sponsorship of the Canadian Football League’s Grey Cup championship game to spark interest in its razors and lighters this fall. The Kick for $1 Million Sweepstakes, one of BIC’s largest consumer promotions ever, combines in-store and out-of-store execution with a new product launch and event marketing. Mississauga, Ontario-based Opticom Promotion Group developed the program.
Consumers have the opportunity to win a weekend getaway for six to Vancouver for the Nov. 28 game, along with $1,000 spending money and the chance to kick a football into a Dodge Ram Pickup Truck for $1 million (plus the truck). If the kicker doesn’t succeed, he still gets $10,000. Former Canadian football star Dave Cutler, a member of Canada’s Hall of Fame, will offer tips to the kicker. Fifty official CFL footballs will be given away during the half-time event.
BIC will leverage its new game-sponsor status to introduce a line of lighters featuring all of the CFL team logos and a collectable Grey Cup 1999 lighter. To support the program, the company has distributed a full-page national FSI and 5,000 customized in-store floor displays. The displays feature header cards and ad-pad entry forms that carry 75-cent-off coupons for BIC razors and CFL lighters. Materials carry both English and French wording.
BIC and its Canadian Airlines, Chrysler Canada, and CFL partners will hype the program via their Web sites. BIC plans to use the database it compiles from entries for future promotions, including an expanded effort for next year’s game.
“The Grey Cup is a Canadian tradition with our core male target group and offers more and more viewers each year,” says BIC shavers and lighters marketing manager Chris Mills. “The feedback from our sales force has been tremendous, and we look forward to a fun event in November that will drive awareness and incremental sales.”
Headquartered in Milford, CT, BIC has been busy this summer with several back-to-school sweepstakes programs that asked kids to visit the BIC Web site for interactive activities that could win them prizes and rebates (on pens and other school needs, not razors and lighters). A partnership with office-supply chain Staples, Westborough, MA, gave kids the chance to win Hewlett-Packard computers, backpacks, and $100 Staples’ gift certificates.
