This past Thanksgiving Day was the coldest ever in New York State and we in western New York received some more snow this morning. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. If you were one of the many who bought online from Black Friday to Cyber Monday here are the current statistics: Cyber Monday raked in a record-breaking $7.8 BILLION and $6.22 BILLION in online sales for Black Friday.

So the 2018 Holiday Season is now upon us. Our friends over at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette started off the day after Thanksgiving with the launch of their Holiday Scratch and Win Instant Win Game. We’ve been assisting them throughout the year with various promotions for their NewsSlide app. The first time they ran a similar promotion, the Slide, Scratch & Win Instant Win Game, was back in March. These promotions help to continue the goal of increasing awareness and downloads of the app.

Once again, the game is giving away $15,000 in prizes, all in the form of Amazon eGift Cards. Entrants are invited to play the game once per day during the sweepstakes period. Ten winners per day have the chance to win the $500 in daily prizes which are two $100 prizes, one $75 prize, two $50 prizes and five $25 prizes. The game runs for 30 days, until December 22, and includes a total 300 winners. We’ve been working with PG’s agency, Garrison Hughes, who is also based in Pittsburgh and who created the instant win mechanic.

People do have to first downloaded the app and then navigate to the ad in the app that promotes the sweepstakes. They just need to submit their name and email address in the entry form to then play the game and find out if they are an instant winner or not.

The PG NewsSlide app contains new technology that attempts to take the daily newspaper audience beyond what is possible with the print edition by providing a deeper, more immersive relationship that includes text, video, animation, photographs and interactive elements including charts, graphs and maps. The platform runs on both iPhone and Android mobile devices including tablets and can be downloaded for free from the iTunes or Google Play Store.

We are receiving daily updates on the winners and sending them each an email with their code for the Amazon eCard. So these prizes will help to promote more online sales, however, just for Amazon in this case.

A new promotion for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette just kicked off this week that we are again assisting them with. A few months back we helped them run the Slide Into a Grand Sweepstakes which coincided with the launch of their NewsSlide app in order to encourage downloads. Their new promotion, the Slide, Scratch & Win Instant Win Game is to further help to continue the goal of increasing awareness and downloads of the app.

Once people have downloaded the app they need to navigate to the ad that promotes the sweepstakes within the app. Once they find it they first need to submit their name and email address in the required fields on the entry form. After that’s completed they can then play the game to find out if they are an instant winner.

Entrants are invited to play the game once per day during the sweepstakes period. Ten winners per day have the chance to win the $500 in daily prizes which are two $100 prizes, one $75 prize, two $50 prizes and five $25 prizes. The game runs for  31 days, until April 4, and includes a total 310 winners of $15,500 in prizes. All the prizes will be awarded in the form of an Amazon eGiftCard. We’ve been working with PG’s agency, Garrison Hughes, who is also based in Pittsburgh and who created the instant win mechanic.

The PG NewsSlide app contains new technology that attempts to take the daily newspaper audience beyond what is possible with the print edition by providing a deeper, more immersive relationship that includes text, video, animation, photographs and interactive elements including charts, graphs and maps. The platform runs on both iPhone and Android mobile devices including tablets and can be downloaded for free from the iTunes or Google Play Store.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette received just over 2,000 entries into the Slide Into a Grand Sweepstakes which amounts to more than 2,000 downloads of the NewsSlide App. They will be promoting the new Instant Win Game on Facebook, so we’ll see if we can beat that number with this promotion.