Watch the Road
WHAT TYPE OF business does Darryl Hughley own?”
The right answer to that and three other sit-com queries put 150 ABC viewers behind the wheel of a brand new Oldsmobile Alero earlier this fall.
To promote its new Tuesday night fall lineup, ABC and General Motors’ Oldsmobile division last month teamed to launch “Start Something Tuesdays on ABC,” what it calls “the largest automobile sweepstakes in history,” says Dan Longest, vice president of promotion marketing for the ABC television network in New York.
To win the $20,000 Alero, viewers answered trivia questions about four shows in the fall lineup that premiered Sept. 22-“Home Improvement,” “Spin City,” and two new programs, “The Hughleys” and “Sports Night.” The sweeps entry forms and instructions were available through local sponsors and on ABC’s Web site (www.abc.com).
“The promotion gets [viewers] involved in the show and helps them understand the characters and who they are, which is important to the success of the show,” Longest says.
Locally, spots on 150 ABC-TV stations drove viewers to pick up entry forms at point-of-purchase displays at participating third party retailers. Nationally, prime-time and daytime network TV spots were combined with print ads to capture viewers in non-participating markets. Ads in Newsweek, People, Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated and inserts in TV Guide featured the promotion and a toll-free number.
Consumer data collected from the entry forms will be for a “tracking study,” to determine the number of participants, the success of the promotion compared with previous promotions, and which advertising medium drove the most participation, according to Longest.
