NFL Playoffs Archives - American Sweepstakes

The Road to Super Bowl LIII. The Clydesdales are back. DEVOUR offers #FoodPorn and a chance to win the Ultimate Man Cave

Last weekend we had the NFL Conference Championship games with both games going into overtime along with some very controversial calls. The pass interference, helmet to helmet call against the LA Rams that was never called led to a game-ending 57 yard field goal by the Rams against the Saints and propelled them into the Super Bowl. The NFL league office acknowledged to New Orleans Coach Sean Payton afterward that the officiating crew botched the call. Then there was talk about Roger Goodel, the NFL commissioner, having the authority to schedule a redo game that would pick up the game at that point. But that never transpired. So now the Los Angeles Rams will make their first appearance in the Super Bowl in 17 years and yes, they will play against who else but the New England Patriots. So now the Patriots are headed to the Super Bowl for the third year in a row and the ninth time with QB Tom Brady.

The game will take place on February 3 in Atlanta, GA, in Mercedes-Benz Stadium between the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams. According to TicketIQ, an aggregator of ticket-buying options, it appears that football fans are underwhelmed by this Super Bowl LIII match-up. TicketIQ reported Tuesday that prices for tickets to the big game have declined 17 percent since Sunday’s conference championship victories. If it had been a different outcome for both games it may have created a pent-up demand for Super Bowl tickets especially among Kansas City Chief fans since their team hasn’t been in the Super Bowl in 49 years. Plus the Saints have a very loyal fan following and New Orleans is by far the closest city to Atlanta among the four teams that made it to the conference championships. But it’s not happening.

So in the meantime the hype for Super Bowl LIII continues. Many of the game sponsors have started releasing more information on their ads that they will be running during the game. I just watched a 60-second ad that Budweiser released this week in which it’s bringing back the Budweiser Clydesdales who were absent from the brand’s ads last year. It shows a dog on top of a Budweiser wagon drawn by the horses in which they drive by a wind farm with Bob Dylan’s most famous song “Blowin’ in the Wind” playing.

This builds on the commitment they announced last year to move to using 100% renewable electricity generated by wind power for brewing the beer. Bud also announced that it will donate enough clean electricity to power the city of Atlanta during the week that it hosts the Super Bowl. In addition, through Feb. 7, Bud and Drift, a clean electricity supplier, are offering a free one-month trial to households that sign up to switch to Drift. Click on the image to watch the ad here. I just love the dog’s ears and jowls blowin’ in the wind!.

Kraft Heinz’s DEVOUR brand has released an “uncensored” 60-second ad that will presumably be tamed down a bit to a 30-second version to air in the game’s third quarter. This version has a woman relating faux-shocking details about how her husband has been acting since he became addicted to “food porn” — meaning Devour frozen meals. Watch the ad to get somewhat of an idea of what food porn is. The brand stated that they have over 184 million #foodporn tags on Instagram,

The ads are being accompanied by promotions including a “1-83-FOODPORN” hotline offering “seductive descriptions of mouthwatering frozen meals”; a partnership in which Barstool Sports personalities will drive a Devour RV “man cave on wheels” to Atlanta. They are also launching the Devour Ultimate Man Cave Sweepstakes offering a grand prize that includes the following for the ultimate “man cave”: a LED Smart TV, a TV Soundbar, a Wireless Music System, a LED Light Up Foosball Table, a Tabletop/Bartop Arcade with 412 Games, a $2,000 Wayfair gift card, a $1,500 Home Depot gift card, a Mixology Bartender 10 Piece Bar Tool and a freezer for their one year supply of DEVOUR products. They will also be awarding 15 First Prize winners the freezer and the one year supply of DEVOUR products.

Next week I’ll include a few more of the ads and promotions that will be announced before Super Bowl LIII. Now that I can’t cheer for the Saints I will be hoping that the Rams, who supposedly are the underdogs, win it. Being a Buffalo Bills fan we just want to see anyone else but the Patriots win!

Snacking for the Big Game Sweepstakes from NatureSweet Tomatoes helps kick off NFL’s Road to Superbowl

We welcome the New Year with sub-zero temperatures in Western New York. So hopefully it’s only going to get better from here.

Now that we’re into January it also means that we’re into NFL Playoffs and a countdown to Super Bowl LII. Last weekend us Buffalo Bills fans got a huge New Year’s present. The Bills won a Wild Card spot in the AFC by beating the Miami Dolphins in the last game of the season. However, they needed the Cincinnati Bengals to beat the Baltimore Ravens in their last game as well. The Ravens had come back to lead the game and the Bengals where driving down the field in the last minutes. It was 4th down with 12 yards to the goal and the Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton threw an amazing pass to the receiver who scored with no time left in the game. Buffalo Bills and their fans all went crazy.

For those that may not be aware, this win by the Bengals helped propel the Bills into the playoffs for the first time in 17 years which was the longest drought on record of any major sports team. The Bills sent the Bengals buffalo wings provided by Duff’s to thank them. One hardcore fan made a $30 online donation to the Andy & Jordan Dalton Foundation. He then tweeted about it challenging fellow Bills fans to “show Andy Dalton some love.” They sure did. The total amount of donations to the Daltons’ charity, which helps children and families in need in the Cincinnati area, is now over $315,000 reported by the Buffalo News.

Now the Bills play the Jacksonville Jaguars this Sunday in Jacksonville to see who moves on. We’d love to see the Bills win this game as well, but either way they made it this far in a year with a brand new coach and general manager. And they finally ended the playoff drought!

We’ve started working with a new client, NatureSweet Tomatoes, and we’ve just kicked off their first sweepstakes with us that went live January 1. The Snacking for the Big Game Sweepstakes is offering a chance to win a 65″ smart TV while promoting their Sunbursts and Glorys. We created their online form which participants can enter here at www.NatureSweetSweeps.com.

We are again using the Shortstack Application to build the entry form and collect all the entrant’s data. All of Shortstack’s entry pages are mobile friendly from the start with Shortstack’s “One Campaign for any screen” design philosophy. They added some new features to the platform last year 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.

NatureSweet is promoting this sweepstakes in various grocery stores with point of sale pieces that match the graphic seen here and online. The sweepstakes runs till February 10. By then we should know who has won this year’s Super Bowl Championship. The predictions are that the New England Patriots will face off against the Minnesota Vikings which will take place in Minnesota’s new stadium. The Patriots are the favorites to win. We’ll see!

Sweepstakes offer chances to win tickets to Super Bowl 50

I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays and Happy New Year. Now that we are into January, as my blogging tradition conditions, I’m going to focus on the football playoff season and the Super Bowl. I will be covering some of the ads and promotional campaigns associated with Super Bowl 50. This year Super Bowl 50 will be hosted on February 7, in the City of Santa Clara at the state-of-the-art Levi’s Stadium, which the bay area hosts claim is the greenest and most technologically advanced professional football stadium in the United States.

Here’s what this year’s playoff picture looks like this year:

If you have been a reader of this blog, you would know that I’m a Buffalo Bills fan and writing about another playoff season that they didn’t make. It was the first year with Rex Ryan as the coach, who promised that we’d make it and then had to eat his words. But on the bright side, it appears we have found a quarterback in Tyrod Taylor and he and Sammy Watkins really connected in the last game of the season in which they ended the Jets playoff hopes.

The Super Bowl has been one of the most watched sporting events and continues to have an enormous amount of marketing associated with it. NBC’s broadcast of last year’s Super Bowl was the most watched program in American television history, surpassing the previous year’s game. So we’ll see if we break that record again.

Last year most of the advertisers followed the trend of the previous year and released their TV spots prior to the actual broadcast of the game. So we expect to see more of that this year. For now here are a few of promotions that are currently still offering a chance to win ticket packages to the game.

SiriusXM’s Super Bowl 50 Sweepstakes is giving their current subscribers a chance to win an opportunity to go to Super Bowl 50. One Grand prize winner will receive round-trip airfare for two to San Francisco, CA, three nights hotel stay and two tickets to Super Bowl 50. This sweepstakes ends on January 25.

Campbell’s Chunky Super Bowl 50 Instant Win Game is giving away ten Grand Prizes that include a 3 night trip for each winner and guest to Super Bowl 50, round trip air transportation, hotel accommodations, a travel stipend for ground transportation, 2 tickets to the game, 2 Super Bowl 50 Gift Bags and $250 spending money. Participants are invited to purchase specialty-marked cans of Campbell’s Chunky soups and look under the lid to see if they are a winner. A no purchase entry is also included on the promotional website.

We are assisting a client with The Shocase Special Teams Sweepstakes which is offering participants a chance to win 2 tickets to Super Bowl 50 along with hotel accommodations. We again are using the Shortstack platform to host the promotional entry form. Shocase’s objective is to create awareness of their professional network for marketers and gain new members.

So what teams will make it to this year’s Super Bowl? Will we see the return of the New England Patriots, or will it be the Denver Broncos who will battle it out with Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers? Or will one of the wild card teams, such as Seattle or Pittsburgh, continue their recent hot streaks and win a division title. We’ll know more after this weekend. Stay tuned for more coverage as the road to the Super Bowl continues.