February 2017 - American Sweepstakes

Here Are Two Warm Weather Destination Giveaway Sweepstakes

Since it’s now February, many of us would like to get away this time of year to enjoy a warmer spot. Here are a couple of new sweepstakes that we’re administering that are offering a chance to win just that.

Joffery’s Coffee To Castle Sweepstakes just started today which offers a chance to win a Walt Disney World® vacation. Joffrey’s is the Official Specialty Coffee of Walt Disney World® Resort, Disneyland® Resort and Disney Vacation Club. They are again offering this trip which includes a 5-day/4-night grand prize vacation package to the Walt Disney World® Resort including hotel, airfare, theme park tickets, plus a $50 Joffrey’s Beverage Card to use for coffee and treats at Joffrey’s kiosks throughout the Walt Disney World® Resort!

We’ve been working with the team from Lane Bryant for several years now which also includes their retail store, Catherine’s. They specialize in plus size clothing and accessories for women. They are currently running the Destination Cancun Sweepstakes offering a chance to win a trip to Cancun, Mexico, courtesy of Apple Vacations and Riu Palace Peninsula. The trip includes 7-night hotel accommodations, round-trip air transportation, ground transfers to and from airport and hotel, plus all meals and drinks in the resort. This sweepstakes is open to March 27 and people can enter online as well as in any Catherine’s stores.

I’ll be heading to Mexico myself in three weeks for a week on the beach and I can’t wait. It’s an island off of Cancun called Isla Mujeres which we visited last March and loved it so much we’re going back. It’s a much quieter destination than Cancun or Disney World, but as prize packages go, they are both pretty nice.

Here’s our Super Bowl LI Wrap Up

The New England Patriots pulled off a serious comeback last Sunday. They beat the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 to win the Super Bowl. The Patriots took the Super Bowl into OT for the first time ever. Patriots QB Tom Brady now has more Super Bowl rings than any QB in history, but his game jersey was stolen! I’m not a Patriots or Tom Brady fan, but you just got love this photo of him with his daughter taken by Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports.

Falcons QB Matt Ryan has the NFL MVP title as a consolation prize and you can bet his team will be a contender again next season. Lady Gaga pulled off an amazing half-time show all by herself and made sure again that everyone knows that she can really sing. She didn’t get political and did a mic drop at the end of her performance and then caught a football in the air! The next day she announced her new world tour.

So what about the ads? This year we got to see most of them online before the game. So there wasn’t as much hype for them during the actual game.

Budweiser’s “Born the Hard Way” pro-immigration ad that I featured here my last post not only was the most watched Super Bowl ad on YouTube, it also had the most social shares among Super Bowl spots according to data from video analytics firm Unruly. This is the fourth time in five years Budweiser has ranked No. 1 on Unruly’s list of the top ten most shared Super Bowl ads. The last time it ranked No. 1 was in 2015 with its “Lost Dog” Super Bowl spot, which I still love.

This Bud ad earned 435,892 shares across Facebook and the blogosphere – nearly twice as many as the No. 2 most shared Super Bowl ad, “Cleaner of Your Dreams” from Mr. Clean who got to show off some moves which generated 226,767 shares.

“Socially conscious videos make up half of the top ads list,” says Devra Prywes, Unruly’s SVP of marketing and insights. In addition to Budweiser’s immigration story, Airbnb, Audi, 84 Lumber, Coca-Cola and Hyundai were other brands that had a social and diversity message. Airbnb had the third most shared ad and Audi was Number 5 on the list. 84 Lumber was the seventh most shared in which they directed people to their website to watch the second half of the story and their site crashed from too much traffic.

Unruly reported that there was a drastic drop in shares among this year’s Super Bowl ads compared to last year. As of yesterday, the combined number of shares for the top ten Super Bowl ads totaled 1,456,023 – this time last year, the top ten most shared Super Bowl 50 ads had earned 2,889,156 shares.In 2015, share numbers were even higher, reaching a record-breaking total of 4.4 million for the top ten most popular Super Bowl ads.

On the lighter side, Honda’s “The Power of Dreams” ad featured celebrities talking from their high school yearbook photo that came to life. Gronk was off the field but in two ads; one “Unlimted Moves” for T-Mobile featuring Justin Beiber and another, “Gronk Kinda Gets it Out” for Tide. And Netflix got us excited for the next season of “Stranger Things” which will start streaming on Halloween.

So that’s my wrap-up of Super Bowl 51 and some of the ads and promotions that were associated with it. I hope you enjoyed my posts. We’ll now start to go through football withdrawal and hope that maybe our team will make it to the playoffs next season!

Super Bowl LI ads from Bud Light, A-B, Intel & Lexus

The New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons both arrived in Houston earlier this week and the level of hype for Super Bowl LI has been increasing. Will the Patriots win their 5th Super Bowl trophy, or will the Atlanta Falcons win their first? Well have a chance to watch and find out this Sunday.

Either way we will again have some great ads to watch. This year nearly 75% of the spots are being revealed before the game, many of them you can now see. I’ve been writing about some of the promotions that have been running that are tied to Super Bowl LI. In my first post about this year’s Road to Super Bowl LI I wrote about the Bud Light Super Bowl Tickets for Life Sweepstakes.

Just this week I read that Lyle Randa from Kansas found out that he had become the sole winner of Super Bowl tickets for life thanks to a gold Bud Light can. In every case of Bud Light beers, consumers had a chance to find a gold-colored can. By posting a photo of it to social media, they were entered for a chance to win two tickets to the Super Bowl for the rest of their life.

This sweepstakes was just part of a new campaign that will include the brand’s TV commercial airing during the game which centers on a “Famous Among Friends” theme they’ve created for this year’s Super Bowl. The brand is planning to do quite a bit on social media this year to bring this theme to life. “One of the best parts about leaning into friendships is the natural connection to social media,” said Victoria Vaynberg, senior director of digital marketing at Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch, in an email, “Social media is where you share the moments we’re celebrating.” Here’s their ad:

Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch, is known for including their famous Clydesdales in their Super Bowl ads. They are scheduled to make their annual appearance again this year, but only a brief one. A-B’s 60-second spot this year is a pro-immigration story that features a young Adolphus Busch and his journey to America and, ultimately, St. Louis, where he would meet his former business partner, Eberhard Anheuser. A-B claims the ad’s immigration message wasn’t intentionally timed to coincide with the recent political issues, but it is definitely relevant right now. Here’s the ad:

Lexus has pre-released this spot titled “Man and Machine” which features a VO by actress Minnie Driver, recording artist Sia and movement artist Lil Buck who all encourage viewers to “Experience Amazing.”

Intel released their ad a few weeks ago, “Everyday Brady” that features the one and only Tom Brady, and a cute dog!. I guess their bet that the Patriots would make it all the way to the Super Bowl paid off.

During the 2016 Super Bowl broadcast CBS was getting $5 million per 30-second spot. 2017 host Fox Sports is reportedly asking for more than $5 million. According to ADWEEK, they have a few spots remaining for this year which will probably go for even more than that.

So let’s hope we enjoy these ads, since they are costly. But most of all I hope it’s a good game.