Kodak Online Golf League Ties to PGA Tour

Kodak has teed off a new online fantasy golf-league game tied to its first partnership with the PGA Tour, a five-year deal that runs through 2014.

While the tour has been underway since January, the first week of the fantasy game takes place during the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial in Fort Worth, TX, on May 28, and lasts through November when the tour wraps up.

The tour event features a designated Kodak Challenge hole. Each week, players in the online game pick a foursome, earning points based upon the golfers’ best scores for that week’s play at the hole.

Weekly winners will receive a choice of a Kodak Digital Camera, Pocket Video Camera, All-in-One Printer or Digital Picture Frame. Each player also receives an entry into a season-ending sweepstakes to win a “Disney Golf Dream Vacation for Four.” The game, the Kodak Challenge Fantasy Pick ’Em, can be played online.

“This is a new competition format that Kodak invented and is presenting with the PGA Tour,” Steve Powell, director of program development for the Kodak Challenge, said.

Golf experts selected the Kodak holes based on history and iconic beauty.

“What you’d think of as a Kodak hole,” Powell said.

Golfers playing the Kodak Challenge also have a chance to win big. The player with the lowest cumulative score relative to par on his best 18 Kodak Challenge holes at the end of the PGA Tour season wins $1 million and the Kodak Challenge trophy.

In key markets, Kodak is setting up kiosks at the Kodak holes where its products are on display and fans can take photos.

About 80% of Kodak’s revenue now comes from digital products, and the game is a way to introduce a “new Kodak” to a younger demographic, Powell said.

“This is an opportunity for us to put the new Kodak in front of a very attractive audience, golf fans and golf enthusiasts,” Powell said.

Kodak has also incorporated some impromptu promotions into the mix based on activities at certain courses. For example, last month at the Shell Houston Open, one of the holes has water along the left side of the course—from the tee to the green—where 153 balls have gone in the water over just the last three years. Kodak put together a competition with the Houston Chronicle for people to guess how many balls would be hit into the waterway this year. Fifty-seven balls hit the water on what turned out to be a very windy day, with the winner receiving a Kodak ZI6 Pocket Video Camera.

“This is a way for us to take the competition that these guys are playing out on the hole and let the fans participate,” Powell said.

The challenge can also be followed on Facebook and Twitter.

Kodak also works hard to increase its return-on-investment in the partnership by integrating Kodak Challenge assets into various product promotions and marketing efforts. In June, a retail promotion will offer a digital picture frame promo for Father’s Day that incorporates the Kodak Challenge imagery. And a “major retailer” will host a training day for employees on Kodak products at a professional golf event.

Powell termed the investment for the marketing partnership “significant.”

“We measure the return by observing how well the product business are integrating the marketing assets and how well their sales efforts then transpire once we’ve connected with them. Some of it is hard to measure, but it’s not just putting a billboard out on the course and hoping people learn the Kodak name.”