Category: Blog

My Birth Plan & Americord Sweepstakes aims to educate expectant parents

We have been involved in many different types of sweepstakes and contests that offer chances to win. These have included various ways to enter and others that have offered unusual and uncommon prize packages. However, this new sweepstakes that we have been assisting with is one of the oddest that we have been involved in.

The  “My Birth Plan & Americord” Sweepstakes just launched today which is sponsored by Ferring Pharmaceuticals. My Birth Plan is what the name says, an online guide to developing a birth plan which is offered by Ferring Pharmaceuticals. Americord is a leader in the advancement of umbilical cord blood, cord tissue, and placenta tissue banking who is a private bank that collects, processes and stores stem cells for future use by the family that saves them.  They have teamed up to give away a free Cord Blood Banking to one lucky expectant mother.

To be eligible to participate an entrant must be a pregnant women with a due date after July 14, 2017, and whose healthcare costs are not eligible to be reimbursed, in whole or in part, by Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, or any other federal or state-funded healthcare benefit program. The sweepstakes runs until June 29. The prize winner will receive an Americord Cord Blood 2.0 Kit which includes up to 20 years of storage and is valued at $2,999.

Cord Blood banking was not around when I was pregnant with either of my two daughters. It is a confusing topic which today many expectant parents get bombarded with information about the subject. Cord blood banking preserves newborn umbilical cord blood stem cells. Right after the baby is born, the process collects blood after the umbilical cord is cut. The OBGYN or midwife collects the blood after the baby is born. The blood ships to a laboratory that separates the stem cells from the plasma and platelets. The lab prepares the stem cells for cryopreservation and stores them in specially designed cryobags and protective cartridges at subzero temperature in tanks using liquid nitrogen. The cord blood bank provides the kit, arranges for bedside pick-up at the hospital, and handles all the testing, processing, and storage.

They tell me that cord blood banking has now become an essential part of birth planning. Since you only have one chance to save cord blood, it’s important for young parents to understand the potential benefits, the process, and the alternatives. Clinical trials of these stem cells (HSCs) from newborn umbilical cord blood are currently exploring the safety and efficacy of using HSCs to treat incurable blood cancers, cerebral palsy, type 1 diabetes, and other diseases. Research continues to find more and more ways to utilize stem cells for treating diseases which the next generation, my daughters, hopefully will see become a reality.

This did seem at first to be a very odd sweepstakes. As I learned more about the process I agree that it is a very good way, although still very unique, to educate people and create awareness for expectant parents. So hopefully it should meet it’s objective.

Instagram Mother’s Day Giveaway and a Celebrate Mum contest

This Sunday, May 14, is Mother’s Day. The Internet has been full of ads and emails with many gift suggestions for mom. Seems like everyone, retailers, brands, restaurants, all have a way on how best to celebrate the moms in our lives. It appears that they are using every media channel available, and social media has been playing a bigger role each year.

We’re assisting with the sweepstakes administration for a Mother’s Day sweepstakes that is available on Instagram. This year we started working with a company called American International Industries (AII Beauty). You probably wouldn’t recognize their name because they are more commonly known by their over 60 different beauty and skin care brands. These brands include Andrea, Ardell, Body Drench, Checi, China Glaze, Clean + Easy, Clubman, EzFlow, Fright Night, Gena, GiGi, ibd, ‘N Rage, ProLinc, SuperNail, Surgi-Care, Tres Flores, and Youthair to name a few. They run many sweepstakes each month for their brands, most all of them on the different Instagram pages of each brand.

Yesterday the Tan Gorgeous Mother’s Day Giveaway Sweepstakes started with promotes both their Ardell Lashes and their Body Drench brands. Fans are invited to enter via the Instagram pages of either @ardell_lashes or @bodydrench. They must follow both @ardell lalshes and @bodydrench and like the Sweepstakes promotional post on each page. They must also share the post on @bodydrench and comment on the post on @ardell_lashes in response to the question: What’s your favorite memory with your mom? Each completed task on each page will receive one entry into the Sweepstakes.

One winner from each Instagram page will each receive one Tan Gorgeous Collection valued at $75 and a $100 worth of Ardell Lashes.

The team at ShortStack sent us a copy of this Mother’s Day promotion that was done for a company called The Good Guys. Shortstack is the platform that we use to create online entry pages for some of our client’s sweepstakes and contests. This #CelebrateMum contest asks participants to nominate their mom or a mother-figure who inspires them to win a grand prize worth over $1,500.

The contest also asks them to chose one of three charities – Miracle Babies Foundation, McGrath Foundation, and Ngala – to win a cash prize. The charity who gets the most votes will receive $1,000, and the other two will each receive $500. They feature a ‘Learn More’ button below each charity to help participants decide which one to vote for.

Four years ago on Mother’s Day I spent the day with both my daughters attending the graduation of our youngest daughter, Alex, from the University of Buffalo. This year I will spend the weekend after Mother’s Day with both of them again and we’ll be attending the graduation ceremony for Alex who has now graduated from the Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine which is located in St. Kitts. The ceremony will be held at the University of Miami. We are all so proud of her. She is now working as a Veterinarian at Ruth Helen Wolf Animal Hospital in Libertyville, IL, just outside of Chicago.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms.

The PGA returns to Oak Hill for the 2019 KitchenAid Senior Championship

The PGA was in town last week and they announced that the 2019 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship was going to be held back at Oak Hill Country Club, here in Pittsford, NY. It was announced a couple years ago that the PGA Championship was returning to Oak Hill Country Club in 2023. So the announcement that the Senior Tournament would be back before then does help to keep golf fans here happy.

This year’s KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship will be hosted by the Trump National Club in Washington, D.C., May 25-28.

Last year, Rocco Mediate won the 77th KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship which was played at Harbor Shores in Benton Harbor, Michigan and will return there in 2018.

Paul Levy, PGA of America President said “We’re thrilled to return the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship to Oak Hill Country Club. The support we receive from Oak Hill’s membership and the Rochester community’s collective enthusiasm for golf are remarkable. As for the East Course, it provides a historical context that is rivaled by few in our sport.”  It’s clear that the East Course is one of the organization’s favorite venues. Between 1995 and through 2023, Oak Hill will have hosted one Ryder Cup (1995), two Senior PGAs (2008, 2019) and three PGA Championships (2003, 2013, 2023). Oak Hill also hosted the 1980 PGA Championship.

I’m looking forward to my women’s golf league which  starts on Tuesday. Hopefully it will warm up a bit around here!

Text-to-win sweepstakes have been successful for Deschutes Brewery

Text-to-win sweepstakes promotions are now being utilized by more and more companies in their marketing mix. It’s an easy way for consumers to enter, especially when they are at an event or at a store location. When they do this you gain their mobile phone number and they are then automatically subscribed to your text messaging list (which they can opt-out at any time).

One of our clients that has been using this promotional method is Deschutes Brewery, a craft beer company headquartered in Oregon. Their beer is available in 29 states throughout the U.S. and in D.C. They had different text-to-win sweepstakes running for 11 months last year, and that is the plan for this year as well.

The way these sweepstakes work is that the participant texts a different keyword for each sweepstakes to the shortcode that we provide. They then receive a message back with a link to a brief, mobile-friendly entry form that they need to fill out and submit to receive an entry into the sweepstakes. So in the case, Deschutes Brewery not only collects their mobile phone number, but their name and email address, and in some cases their mailing address, which makes it easy to ship out the prizes directly to the winners.

We helped them kick off the Stanley Sweepstakes in February that will be running till the end of the year. Participants text “stanley” to the shortcode 65047 for a chance to win one of the 10 Stanley camping kits that they are giving away each month. The camping kit includes a steel growler pack and is valued at $60. Each month we draw the 10 winners for them and participants are welcome to come back and enter daily, although they can only win once.

Now this month we helped them launch the Hobo Hammock Sweepstakes that runs now till the end of August. Participants text “hammock” to 65047 for a chance to win one of 10 Hobo Hammocks each month. We will also draw the 10 winners at the end of each month for this sweepstakes and, as in the Stanley Sweepstakes, participants can enter daily.

Besides the ease of entry for consumers, Deschutes Brewery receives extra awareness at the retail and bar locations. In fact many alcohol beverage brands are now utilizing text to win and other types of sweepstakes promotions in order to gain the extra display and point of sale that promote the sweepstakes. I wrote this post last week about a couple of sweepstakes we helped Rutherford Ranch run that has gained them this extra awareness for two of their brands. We have a few spirit brands that we’re also assisting them with that will be running during the next few months.

Sweepstakes help Rutherford Wines build engagement on Facebook and awareness at retail

In the heart of Napa Valley is the Rutherford Ranch Winery, a family-owned and family farmed winery. They were named ‘Napa Winery of the Year’ at the 2013 New York International Wine Competition. The Rutherford Wine portfolio includes Rutherford Ranch, Scott Family Estate, Predator Wines, Lander-Jenkins Wines, Rhiannon, Silver Buckle, Round Hill and extensive Private Label offerings.

Last year through our sister company, Alliance Sweepstakes Services, we ran a promotion for their Lander-Jenkins Wines called Support the Next Generation of Farmers Sweepstakes. They had partnered up with the National Young Farmers Coalition to help increase awareness that farming is a public service. So for each bottle of Lander-Jenkins wines purchased, they made a donation to help support the next generation of farmers.

For the sweepstakes two grand prize winners received a gardening kit valued at $200 and 100 first prize winners received a t-shirt supporting the cause. They printed neck ringers, case cards and shelf talkers to display at point-of-sale in retail locations and featured the promotion on their Facebook page and website.

This year a promotion for their Rutherford Ranch Two Range Napa Valley Red Wine brand is currently running . The Ride the Range Sweepstakes started in March and continues till May 31. Three Grand Prize winners will each receive a custom-made Ride the Range bicycle by Detroit Bikes which is valued at $900. Plus six First Prize winners will each receive a custom bike helmet and riding jersey.

For this sweepstakes they also printed neck ringers, case cards and shelf talkers to display at point-of-sale in retail locations and featured the promotion on their Facebook page and website. Both of these sweepstakes promotions helped them to engage their fans on Facebook and to gain awareness at point-of-sale.

We set up the sweepstakes entry pages for both of these sweepstakes again using the Shortstack Application. Shortstack first started out as a Facebook application. They have broaden the capabilities of their platform and you can now install the app on a Facebook page and also embed the entry form on any webpage or host online as a separate promotional micro-site which we are doing for Rutherford Wine. Both entry forms are utilizing the same graphics and all entries go into one database. This allows for only one entry per day, per email regardless of what method they entered from.

All of Shortstack’s entry pages are mobile friendly from the start with Shortstack’s “One Campaign for any screen” design philosophy. Recently they have added some new features to the platform that make adding CSS coding very easy for those of us that don’t have much programming experience. If you would like more details on how to set up a promotion utilizing the Shortstack platform, please feel free to contact me. It’s a great tool and it also includes a great team of support people.

I haven’t had a chance to visit Napa Valley yet, but it hopefully will be in my plans sometime during the next couple of years. I will definitely visit the Rutherford Ranch Winery then, but in the meantime I will be sampling some more of their wines. Give them a taste.

Lane Bryant’s Inspired by ThisBody Contest asks “Who inspires you?”

Lane Bryant has been a client of ours now for many years and we have done several promotions for them. Last May I wrote this post about their new “THIS BODY” campaign which included the “THISBODY” Sweepstakes that we helped them run. Now we’re helping Lane Bryant with their “Inspired by ThisBody” Contest that they kicked off on March 24.

The THIS BODY campaign originally featured a series of plus-size models wearing everything from fashionable outfits to nothing at all, each celebrating the female form in all its unadulterated glory. Plus-size models Tara Lynn, Denise Bidot and Georgia Pratt along with Ashley Graham and Precious Lee stared in the campaign’s video. Ashley Graham and Precious Lee were also featured in last year’s historic Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue and Ashley was back in this year’s issue as well.

This year’s This Body campaign has focused on “Women who break the mold” and features women artists that are “Inspired by ThisBody”. Lizzo featured here is a singer and activist who is quoted as saying “When I just decided to let my body do what it wanted to do and focus on what’s important to me, I realized that I liked what I saw.”

The “Inspired by ThisBody” Contest invited women to submit a brief description about a person that inspires them. To help encourage women to participate, the ThisBody website states “To the women who inspire us every day. To the women you inspire. To all the bad-ass women out there… we see you. And we’re taking over the world together. ”

The submission period just ended on April 5 and the contest received over 2,000 stories on amazing women. Now people are invited to vote for their favorite inspiration story up until April 12. Once that is completed a panel of judges will choose the Grand Prize winner based on the following criteria: Overall appeal of entrant’s story (75%) and Creativity of description (25%). The winner will receive a $1,000 Lane Bryant gift card.

Read some of their stores and then ask yourself who inspires you?

Check in to Club CITGO for a chance to win free gas for a year

We’re all hoping that the cost of gas remains holding pretty steady for the rest of this year. But who wouldn’t want to win free gas for a year? We’re working again with the team at CITGO to assist with their Club CITGO Free Gas for a Year Sweepstakes. This promotion will be running all year with one lucky winner per quarter. They way it works is through the Club CITGO App.

Participants in 26 eastern states, plus D.C., are invited to download the app and set up a personal Club CITGO account. They will each receive a Free Gas for a Year Sweepstakes notification altering them each quarter that the sweepstakes is open for entries. Those users can obtain daily entries via the app Check-Ins. A Check- In is measured by the entrant’s mobile device being within 400ft of the tracking hardware installed at a participating CITGO location.The tracking hardware uses GPS and the entrant must have GPS/Location Services enabled. If an entrant is within the 400ft distance, they can obtain one entry by clicking the ‘Check-In’ button in the app sidebar. The sweepstakes rules do allow for an alternative means of entry by mail for those participants that may not want to use their data or have a mobile phone.

Entrants are allowed to Check-In daily for multiple chances to win. At the end of each quarterly sweepstakes period one lucky grand prize winner will receive $2,500 worth of CITGO gas cards, which should be enough for a year’s worth of driving. Besides the sweepstakes, participants can check-in every day to earn extra perks and rewards to save on in-store items such as their favorite snacks, drinks as well as gasoline.

We’ve also been working with CITGO on various text-to-win sweepstakes that invite participants to enter by just texting a keyword to gain an entry. We recently wrapped up the Win a Hockey Game Night Experience Package Sweepstakes in which participants entered for a chance to win tickets to a Chicago Blackhawks hockey game. Two winners received four 100 level seat tickets and two winners received four penthouse suite tickets. All winners also received a ride on the ice resurfacer.

So we are seeing more and more sweepstakes using mobile as a means of entry. Most lawyers will still tell you that using data to enter a sweepstakes may be construed as consideration (purchase) and you should include another method of entry without purchase. However, no claims or lawsuits have yet to be filed. So it is all according to what level of risk that your company is comfortable with. As more and more mobile providers offer unlimited data plans we’ll see if that will change anytime soon.

March Madness excitement works for the Bar-S Bracket Challenge

We will soon see the end to this year’s March Madness. It’s now down to the Final Four, South Carolina and Gonzaga will meet in the first game and then Oregon and North Carolina will play each other to take place at the University of Phoenix on April 1. Then the championship game will be on April 3.

So will it include the two Carolinas? North Carolina is looking to make their second consecutive appearance in the national title game, while South Carolina and Gonzaga will make their first Final Four ever. Oregon hasn’t made the national semifinal since the first Final Four in 1939.

The 2017 Women’s Final Four will begin Friday, March 31, in Dallas as the South Carolina Gamecocks face the Stanford Cardinal and the UConn Huskies take on the Mississippi State Bulldogs. The winners of the two national semifinal match ups will meet in the national championship game on Sunday. UConn currently has an amazing 111-game win streak, as in consecutive games.

Many people’s men’s brackets were shot by some early upsets and a few Cinderella stories. As always there are many promotions going on from those brands that are official sponsors of the NCAA. Capital One is the official bank and credit card of the NCAA and each year they run their March Madness Bracket Challenge. I’ve participated in this in previous years, but didn’t get around to it this year. They also have the March Madness Tournament Run which let’s you make individual picks at any time throughout the tournament.

Through our sister company, Alliance Sweepstakes, we’ve been working with a client who is not an official sponsor of the NCAA, but has come up with a very clever and  legitimate way to get involved with the excitement. Bar-S Foods, a maker of hot dogs, lunch meat, bacon, corn dogs and sausages, is running the Bar-S Bracket Challenge on their Facebook page.

We kicked this promotion off on February 28 and it runs until April 9. The team has been posting on the page at various times throughout the promotion offering chances to win a prize by leaving a comment on that post. Each post asks participants to pick one of the two hot dogs that they like the best.

In this post it presents the Texas Hot Dog vs. the Coney Island Hot Dogs. Five of these posts are each offering a chance to win a package of Bar-S brand swag. Seven of these posts are offering one grand prize winner $5,000! So all the comments made on all seven posts will be included in the random drawing for the grand prize which will take place next week.

The participation has been great with anywhere from 700 to over a 1,000 comments on each post. There will be one more post for a chance at the grand prize and there are two more posts that will offer the brand swag package. So you still have time to check it out and play.

As far as the Final Four, Vegas is giving the men’s tournament to North Carolina and the women’s they are also with the UConn Huskies. We’ll see if each team can pull it off.

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!