RadioShack Gets Bang Out of Stones Sponsorship
RadioShack is pumping it up via sponsorship of the Rolling Stones’ latest tour. The electronics retailer is activating with a sweepstakes, concert and retail promotion to create buzz at its 6,000 locations nationwide.
RadioShack is the presenting sponsor of the A Bigger Bang tour (named after the Rolling Stone’s album of the same name released a year ago), which kicked off Sept. 20.
RadioShack launched a Bigger Bang sweepstakes at RadioShack.com/abiggerbang. The sweeps dangles a trip for two to the last concert in Hawaii on Nov. 22, a 37-inch LCD HDTV and DVD player, a Sirius Satellite Radio portable receiver and one-year Sirius service, a Motorola Bluetooth music package, $500 in RadioShack gift cards and a trip to New York City to be a guest DJ on Sirius Satellite Radio’s Rolling Stones Channel 98, as a grand prize.
Prizes (including HDTVs, Sirius equipment and service and concert tickets) will also be awarded to second, third and fourth place winners. The sweeps ends Oct. 29.
The Stones are scheduled for gigs in 20 cities, including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, NJ, Phoenix, AZ, and Boise, ID. Beginning with the tour stop in Chicago on Oct. 11, consumers who entered the sweeps and who live in a 100-mile radius of the concerts will be randomly selected to receive tickets to see the band in their area.
In some tour cities, customers visiting RadioShack stores for store openings or radio remotes will be the target of a Ticket Patrol, which will reward unsuspecting consumers with VIP tickets to area concert.
Meanwhile at concerts, the consumer electronic retailer is setting up its famed red chair (used in an ad campaign last holiday season in which consumers make wishes for consumer electronic goodies). Concertgoers are videotaped making wishes in the red chair and can redeem the footage and pass it along to friends by using a special code on RadioShack.com/abiggerbang. On the Web site, consumers can also get a free download of the Rolling Stone’s Rough Justice song.
“It’s a natural fit for us to be the sponsor of The Rolling Stones,” said RadioShack spokesperson Charles Hodges. “They’ve been around for several decades and remain the number-one touring band in existence today. A lot of our customers who grew up as fans bought equipment like turntables and cassette players from us to listen to The Rolling Stones. Today, [customers] buy digital devices such as iPods to listen to them.”
The tour ends right before Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving Day, famed as the highest-volume shopping day of the year), which was a perfect fit for the retailer, Hodges said.
As a result, “the tour will keep us top of mind and in front of consumers for two months leading up to the shopping season,” he added. “We think [the initiative] is a great way to drive our brand and show our relevance in today’s consumer electronics market.”
Online banner ads, the RadioShack.com Web site, P-O-P, store circulars, and newspaper inserts support.
Boston-based Arnold Brand Promotions, PROMO’s Agency of the Year for 2006, handles.
For more coverage on games, contests & sweepstakes
For more coverage on event marketing
For more coverage on entertainment marketing
