Month: February 2020

We recently started working with a client who has a popular YouTube channel called the CboysTV, along with as a small eCommerce business. The Cboys are a group of young entrepreneurs and entertainers who specialize in living life to it’s fullest every day! The Cboys have been best friends since a very young age and all of them grew up in the Cormorant Lakes Area of Northern Minnesota. They claim to have been blessed with a busy and exciting lifestyle of both work and play and taken their ‘talents’ of humor and recklessness to a fan base of now more than 500,000 people on YouTube!!

They launched their first small business with CboysTV.com and began selling Cboys merchandise such as shirts, hats and stickers which has been a huge success so far. They also started doing some giveaways which they promoted both on their YouTube channel and their website. They came to us for assistance with this latest sweepstakes since it involves a prize of high value. The Cormorant Boys Giveaway #8 Sweepstakes launched on February 17 and runs till the end of March. There will be one Grand Prize Winner awarded at the end of the Sweepstakes who will receive a snow bike kit which consists of a 2019 Kawasaki KX 450 F along with a Timbersled® Riot Kit. The combination of the two has a total grand prize value of $10,000. I wasn’t aware that you could convert a dirt bike to ride in the snow, but obviously there is a big market for it. Click on the photo below to view their latest video that promotes this.

They expanded their online business by launching a couple of other websites, www.wideopenparts.com and www.erasedproducts.com and starting selling other products helmets, goggles, gloves and more. So fans will receive one entry into the Sweepstakes for every $5.00 of merchandise (excluding tax and shipping) that they purchase on any of their three websites. Since all sweepstakes in the U.S. have to have a No Purchase Necessary clause we also have opened a PO Box for the sweepstakes where people can mail-in their entry as well. There is no limit to the number of entries that can be received from either method.

So I wish these young entrepreneurs much more success and hope we can assist them with many more future promotions. Be sure to check out more of their videos on their channel.

We’re working again this year with the Republic National Distribution Company,  who are distributors of alcohol beverage brands. They have asked us to assist in three different text-to-win mobile sweepstakes for their clients so far this year. Here’s an overview of each one.

We started off 2020 with The Botanist Ginuary Sweepstakes  which is sponsored by Remy Cointreau USA and is running January 1 till the end of February. Participants are invited to text the keyword Botanist to the short code 65047 where they will receive a text message back with a link to a form that they need to fill out and submit to receive an entry. They may also directly visit the online form located at https://go.sweeppea.com/BOTANIST to receive an entry. At the end of the sweepstakes period we will draw 15 Grand Prize Winners who will each receive a Home Bartending Kit valued at $100.

Next we launched The National Margarita Day Sweepstakes, also sponsored by Remy Cointreau USA ,which kicked off on January 15 and runs till March 15. Participants text the keyword Cointreau to the shortcode 65047 or enter directly online at https://go.sweeppea.com/Cointreau and follow the same instructions as in the Botanist Sweepstakes. At the end of this sweepstakes will will draw 20 Grand Prize Winners who each receive a Margarita kit that includes a Shaker, Jigger, Lime Squeezer, Tank Top, Tee-shirt, Temporary Tattoos, Coasters, Photo Backdrop, Photo Props, Inflatable Margarita and Inflatable Bottle all valued at $250.

The last sweepstakes running now is The Born Bayou Sweepstakes sponsored by The Stoli Group USA which started on February 20 and runs till the end of March. Here participants are invited to text the keyword BAYOU to the shortcode 65047 or enter directly online at https://go.sweeppea.com/Bayou and follow the same instructions as in the other two sweepstakes. At the end of this sweepstakes we will also draw 15 Grand Prize Winners who will each receive craw fish pot and a retailer gift card for a total prize value of $586 each.

All three brands produced in-store point-of-sale materials to promote their sweepstakes in retail locations. Setting up a text-to-win sweepstakes is a great way to encourage in-store displays. All alcohol beverage brands are required by law to confirm participants are 21 years of age or older at the time of sweepstakes entry. So by providing the additional form we can asked for their date-of-birth in order to comply with the law, along with other data such as name, email address and also mailing address which makes it easy to ship the prizes direct to the winners.

We hope to continue to assist this client with more of these text-to-win sweepstakes as the year moves on. If you are interested in running one please contact me.

Valentine’s Day this year falls on this Friday, February 14, just in case you weren’t aware.  Everyone including retailers, brands, restaurants and other businesses all have been providing us with ways on how best to celebrate. This holiday appears to get bigger and bigger each year.

One of our long-standing clients, Sandals Resorts, has gotten in the love mood this year with a special Valentine’s Day sweepstakes called “The Suiteheart Sweepstakes”. Sandals is giving one Grand Prize Winner the chance to stay at a “Love Nest Butler Suite” and enjoy an ultimate luxury vacation. The sweepstakes started on February 1 and runs till February 29, yes it is a leap year. All people have to do is visit the Sandals website at www.sandals.com/Suiteheart2020 and fill out the entry form to gain an entry into the sweepstakes.

The Grand Prize winner will receive a Sandals 7day/6night “Luxury Included” accommodations for two in a Love Nest Suite at any Sandals resort that they can choose from located in Jamaica, Antigua, Saint Lucia, The Bahamas, Barbados or Grenada. Each Butler suite offers the utmost in privacy and plush elegance, including 24-hour room service with professionally trained butlers.

The “Luxury Included” amenities include local airport transfers, unlimited 5-Star Global Gourmet dining at up to 16 restaurants per resort, unlimited beverages and premium brand drinks, daily and nightly entertainment, land and water sport activities at the resort (scuba diving for certified divers), wi-fi, tips and gratuities and resort taxes. The only thing not included is the airfare to any of the islands. Total prize value is $6,500.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all. I am just hoping that it doesn’t snow on Friday so that my husband doesn’t have to work late and we can enjoy a quiet meal at home with a nice bottle of wine!

The Kansas City Chiefs won their first Super Bowl in over fifty years against the San Fransisco 49er’s last Sunday 31-20 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. The two teams were tied going into halftime, but then KC scored 21 points in the 4th quarter to seal the game. Patrick Mahomes, the Chief’s quarterback, was the youngest player ever to earn both MVP honors and a Super Bowl. And it’s the first title for their coach, Andy Reid, 61, who up until Sunday night had been known as the best head coach to have never won a Super Bowl or NFL championship. This was his second Super Bowl appearance in his 21-year head coaching career.

Besides the ads, people were talking about how great Demi Lovato sang the national anthem after she just recently had a emotional performance on the Grammy’s.

The other big winners of the day were Shikira and Jennifer Lopez who performed for the Pepsi Halftime show. Their performance has gotten more coverage then the game itself.  Alex Rodriquez, J-Lo’s finance, tweeted while dancing with the audience, “AMAZING!! She ABSOLUTELY CRUSHED IT! Wow, that was so fun!”

Now back to the ads. Which one was your favorite? While the majority of the ads focused on humor, the ad that instead tugged at our heartstrings, Google’s “Loretta”, was the most effective ad of the year according to video ad tech company Unruly. I had seen the ad already since it had been released before the game, but still have to admit it choked me up a bit. It brought back memories of my parents who we had lost our mom seven years before dad. However, I still don’t understand what Google’s Assistant is really all about, so I may look into it a bit. One article I read pointed out that it was strange that Google spent this much money to show us a different way to catalog our photos.

Two of the top three ads by most articles I’ve read, including USA Today’s Ad Meter, were automobile ads. At number one was Bill Murray who was featured in Jeep’s Groundhog Day ad, along with an adorable groundhog.  This made perfect sense with Super Bowl Sunday being on Groundhog Day this year. Number Two was the Smaht Pahk, Hyundai Sonata’s Remote Smart Parking Assist feature which included David “Big Papi” Ortiz among others. I had to go back and watch the Jeep ad  since I missed it during the actual game…it was worth it.

One of my personal favorites, Weathertech’s Lucky Dog ad, featured Scout, a golden retriever cancer survivor. I also have a golden retriever, Molly, and as I wrote in last’s week post, my daughter attend the the University of Madison’s Veterinary School and is now a vet. So I am partial to this ad.

Another first was made in this year’s Super Bowl game with Offensive Assistant Coach of the 49ers, Katie Sowers, on the field. She is opening the door for women and LGBT people to help them pursue any career that they chose. Thanks to Microsoft for showcasing her in their ad Be The One: Katie Sowers.

Pepsi, which sponsors the Super Bowl halftime show, drove the largest Twitter conversation share with its interactive tweet campaign, which invited users to guess elements of the half time show. Pepsi used its campaign to drive awareness for Pepsi Zero Sugar, which included giveaways and major prizes tied into its new offerings. People were invited to Tweet #PepsiSweepstakesOK every time someone said OK during the broadcast to enter for a chance to win.

So we experienced a pretty good football game, some memorable performances by J-Lo, Shakira, and Demi Lovato and also were entertained by Bill Murray, those folks from Boston, Baby Nut, Lil Nas X and Sam Elliott, and a host of others. It was a fun few hours to spend at the start of February.

Here’s looking forward to the next NFL season. Hope you enjoyed my posts.