Rio 2016 Olympic Games Archives - American Sweepstakes

Here’s one more look back at 2016. Happy New Year!

Happy New Year. Usually I will post my end of year review a day or so before the end of the year. But this year I got busy and stayed away from the computer for a few days. So I’m posting it now. Here are 10 posts of what I thought reflected what was happening at the time and a few that were kinda cool for us. Happy New Year and here’s to wishing a happy, healthy and prosperous year for us all.

Last year for the Doritos annual Crash the Super Bowl Video Contest

My January posts always cover the Super Bowl along with all the marketing, advertising and promotions that go with it. Super Bowl 50 saw Payton Manning going out on top with the Denver Broncos defeating the Carolina Panthers. PepsiCo, the parent company of Doritos, was back again for their 10th and last season of their Annual Crash the Super Bowl Video Contest. Who will be in this year’s Super Bowl LI 2017?

Sweepstakes encourages participation in the WrestleMania Reading Challenge!

New for 2016 was this sweepstakes, a partnership between WWE and First Book that we got to host and administer. The sweepstakes encouraged families to read together for 15 minutes every day, then record what they did for a chance to win a trip to WrestleMania 32!

Facebook’s F8 Conference reveals new tools for businesses to connect with consumers

The social giant hosted their annual conference for developers known as F8 back in April. Here they rolled out more updates for their Messenger platform and launched a few bots on the platform as well. Facebook Messenger continued to roll out more updates as the year went on copying many of SnapChat’s features. Facebook ended the year struggling to deal with fake news on it’s platform which will continue to be an issue into 2017.

Giveaways, Sweepstakes & Contests…best practices for keeping them legal

I was encouraged to again write this legal review when I was asked the following question which varies a little from time to time, ”We are doing a quick giveaway via social media and want to check, are we covered from a legal aspect?” My question back is, do you have official rules? This post covers the rules should always include.

We’re celebrating brides this month with the launch of the A.C. Moore Crystal Coast Wedding Contest

It was the month of June, which is known as the “dads, grads, and brides” month. So I wrote a post on a Father’s Day promotion the week before and the week before that I wrote about a Twitter promotion for grads . So this post was focused on brides. A.C. Moore Arts & Crafts launched a chance to win a wedding with their Craft Me a Crystal Coast Wedding Contest. The grand prize wedding consisted of a trip for the bride and groom to the Crystal Coast, North Carolina, to get married on October 22, 2016.

Pilot Pen and Shonda Rhimes announce the $50,000 Overachievers Grant Contest

This was probably the biggest promotion that we worked on in 2016 and the one that has received the most comments from our post back in July. In fact I just received another one today asking about the winners. While we don’t have any part of the judging of this contest, the period for the judges to review all the submissions was till December 30, 2016. So we expect that they will announce the finalists on their web page very soon. So we’ll be watching for the announcement.

Raising an Olympian: Simone Biles and the Final Five at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games

I wrote a few posts back in August covering the Summer 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. This surely was one of the greatest highlights of the year in sports for the USA. Simone Biles and Aly Raisman picked up the gold and silver medals respectively in the Women’s Floor final. Then the Final Five went on to win gymnastics team gold. Procter & Gamble’s “Thank You, Mom” ad campaign was back, featuring real Olympic athletes and their moms. Part of this campaign featured the “Raising an Olympian: Simone Biles – Rio 2016 Olympic Games” ad. P&G was smart enough to realize at the time that Simone was going to be a new star. See again this heartbreaking ad of Simone and her Mom for Tide.

Tonight’s the final game for the Dream Fan Experience Sweepstakes at Camden Yards

This was one of the last games of the regular season for MLB, with my team, the Boston Red Sox playing against the Baltimore Orioles. They ended up beating the Orioles for their sixth straight victory. They would go on to the post season only to get swept by the Cleveland Indians were we got to see David Ortiz’s (Big Papi) career come to an end. I was so glad that I made a trip to Toronto that season to see him play with the Red Sox against the Toronto Blue Jays. I had hoped to see a World Series with the Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs, which didn’t happen. But the Cubs and their fans were finally awarded their first World Series title in 108 years!

Highlights from the 2016 BAA Marketing Law Conference in Chicago

I headed back to Chicago in November to attend the BAA’s 2016 38th Annual Marketing Law Conference. The BAA had another great year with over 750 professionals in attendance ranging from regulators, legislators, corporate counsel, marketers and technology innovators who gathered again at the Marriott Hotel on Michigan Ave. This is a great conference to keep up to date with the latest on regulations and rules in our industry. This year’s conference began the day after the election. So there were many discussions going on during the breaks and cocktail receptions about it. It will be an interesting 2017 to see what will now change.

Winner awarded $250,000 in the Great Home Giveaway during Ohio State Football Game

This sweepstakes we saw are largest prize to date awarded which happened during one of the intermissions of this football game between Ohio State and Michigan. Congratulations went to Kathy Lowery from Columbus. She got to choose between the following options: 1) A $250,000 Trinity Home in an existing Trinity Home subdivision; 2) A $165,000 credit towards building a Trinity Home in a Trinity Home subdivision throughout Central Ohio; 3) $100,000 cash option. Last we heard Kathy choose to take the $250,000 home. The Ohio State Buckeyes ended up defeating the Michigan Wolverines 30 to 27 in double overtime in what was reported to be the most exciting college football game of the season!

Happy New Year! Thanks again for being a reader of our blog, Promo Talk, and I hope you’ll continue with us in 2017.

P&G clearly picked a winner in Simone Biles for their 2016 Rio Olympic Games ad camapign

At the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics yesterday Simone Biles and Aly Raisman picked up the gold and silver medals respectively in the Women’s Floor final. Simone was untouchable with a score of 15.966 , almost a half-point better than Aly’s 15.5 which was good enough for the silver. Simone brought her total to four golds and five medals in all making her now the most decorated gymnast in US history.

Those who know the floor routine will say that Simone’s third pass makes her superhuman. Gymnasts legs get tired, so their first tumbling passes on the floor routine are usually the most difficult. However, Simone’s third pass is a double twisting double back, which is as hard as many gymnasts’ first pass. Take a look here.

The floor exercise final added to the best medal output for a U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team and also marked the end for the Final Five. This team won nine medals total and broke the record of eight shared by the 1984 and 2008 teams. There is little doubt the U.S. will move forward as the best women’s gymnastics nation and we hope to see more of Simone Biles in the 2020 Olympics.

As I mentioned in my first post about these Olympics, Procter & Gamble’s “Thank You, Mom” ad campaign is back, featuring real Olympic athletes and their moms. Part of this campaign features the “Raising an Olympian: Simone Biles – Rio 2016 Olympic Games” ad that P&G first released back in July of 2016 for their Tide brand. They were smart enough to realize at that time that Simone was going to be a new star. Click on the ad below.

According to Texas Monthly, Simone’s real mother had an addiction problem, and her father was not around. She and her siblings wound up in several foster homes until she was 6, when her maternal grandfather, Ron, and his wife, Nellie, adopted Simone and her younger sister. The girls eventually went from calling them “Grandma and “Grandpa” to “Mom and “Dad”. So Nellie Biles is the mom telling this story in the ad. Simone supposedly speaks to her biological mother, Shanon, over the phone occasionally, but has only seen her a few times since her adoption, and Simone says she feels “like another cousin.”

Here’s the second ad that P&G released as part of the campaign for Tide Pods, which if you were watching the broadcast last night on NBC, you would have seen this.

Simone’s story continues…at the age of 6 during a daycare field trip to a gym, the coaches noticed her imitating the gymnasts and sent her home with a letter encouraging her parents to sign her up for classes. “Gymnastics was not a sport that came to mind that I would have put Simone in in the first place,” Nellie told Us Weekly. “That just came by as an accident, and it was a great accident.” It certainly was! We got to witness what may be the greatest gymnast in the world.

Their are a few days left in the 2016 Olympic Games which will wrap up on Sunday with the Men’s final basketball game that the U.S. is heavily favored for its sixth gold medal. The closing ceremonies that evening will feature the Olympic cauldron being extinguished in Rio as we then look to the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games and 2020 Tokyo Olympics. I hope you enjoyed my coverage of the games here.

#DoingGood campaign from Minute Maid celebrates parents with Missy Franklin. Utilizes an emotional ad, contest and sweepstakes.

The Rio Summer Olympic Games are now into the middle of their first week and Team USA has been amazing. Last night the U.S. women’s Olympic gymnastics team had already clinched the team gold medal by the time three-time world champion Simone Biles performed her floor exercises during the final event. The U.S. posted a score of 184.897, more than eight points more then silver medalist Russia and nearly nine more than bronze medalist China! The “Final Five” Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas, Madison Kocian and Laurie Hernandez saluted their coach Martha Karolyi, who will be retiring after 15 years in the program.

While in the pool, Micheal Phelps made up for one of the rare losses in his amazing career by winning the Gold Medal in 200-meter butterfly that sent him climbing into the stands to kiss his 3-month-old son, Boomer. An hour later, he returned to participate in the final lap of the 4×200 freestyle relay, earning the team a Gold Medal and his 21st! Katie Ledecky, the 19-year-old superstar, won a Gold Medal in the women’s 200-meter freestyle. Ledecky won in 1:53.73, just beating Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden, who finished in 1:54.08.

Last week I started writing about some of the sponsors of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in which I highlighted Proctor & Gamble and their Olympic ad campaigns which have been trending online. This week I’m highlighting Coca-Cola, who is again a worldwide sponsor of the games. They have been promoting their Minute Maid brand and this ad, #doingood I See What U.S. Olympian Missy Franklin Has To Say, has been the #2 ad trending on YouTube for Olympic Sponsors.

Missy Franklin teamed up with Minute Maid to deliver a moving letter to her parents, Dick and D.A., in which she thanked them for the role they have played in her success and for their dedication to their only child. In 2012, Missy won four gold medals and broke world records in the pool in London. Unfortunately, in Rio Missy failed to advance in the 200-meter freestyle at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium. She’s scheduled to swim again today in the 4×200 relay, so we hope Monday’s disappointing bad swim doesn’t last.

The objective of Minute Maid’s #doingood campaign is to remind parents of all the wonderful things they do to make a positive difference in their children’s lives every day. “I wouldn’t be where I am today without the love and support from my parents,” Franklin said. “They continue to make sacrifices to help me achieve my dream. It is a tremendous gift that I can only hope to repay one day. Minute Maid’s #doingood campaign is a remarkable opportunity for me to not only thank my own parents but recognize and honor all parents who truly have the most difficult job there is – raising great children.”

Minute Maid ran the “Breakfast with Missy” Contest inviting fans to share a positive message with a parent they know who may struggle with self-doubt. Up until May 31, fans could post a photo or video that captured how a parent in their life is #doingood at MinuteMaid.com/doingood, or on Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #doingoodcontest. Franklin selected five winners and a guest of their choice to join her for a private breakfast event following the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. I have not seen an announcement of who those winners are.

Right now they are running the Medals of Goodness Sweepstakes inviting fans to create and submit a meme to give their parents the shout out they deserve. Participants need to upload a receipt from any Minute Maid purchase then the sweepstakes generator to create a meme to tell a parent how they’re #doingood.* Each receipt and meme that is approved earns a sweepstakes entry for the chance to win $10,000!

So good luck to Missy, the entire USA Swim team and the women USA gymnastics “Final Five”. Stay tuned next week for another update on the Olympics and a sponsor. Enjoy the games!

The Rio 2016 Olympics with #LikeAGirl, Alex Morgan and Thanking Moms from Always and P&G

Rio de Janeiro will finally kick off the 2016 Olympic Games this Friday, Aug. 5, which willl take place till Aug. 21, marking the first Olympic Games to be held in South America. The Opening Ceremony will be held at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio and it was just announced that Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, was selected as Team USA’s flag bearer! NBC is the official broadcaster of the games where you can watch it all live.

While there has been a great amount of negative news about the Rio Olympics, it hasn’t stopped the sponsors of the Olympic Games to fully launch their marketing campaigns. One in particular I’d like to highlight in today’s post is the Always #LikeAGirl campaign from parent company, P&G, who is a Worldwide Partner of the Games. They first introduced this campaign in June, 2014, which attracted a huge amount of press and public interest, taking home a Glass Lion in Cannes, while the video had more than 62 million views on YouTube.

Their new ad “Keep playing” from Leo Burnett was released four weeks before the 2016 Olympic Games and it is now currently topping the chart on YouTube of all the ads from this year’s Olympic sponsors. This ad addresses the fact that half of young women quit the sports they’re passionate about due to outside pressures associated with their gender. The ads interview real girls who recount numerous stories where they’ve been told they aren’t as aggressive as boys, or they simply can’t do a particular sport.

The brand stated that a recent NHCS study found that women aged 18 to 24 are twice as likely to be confident if they play sports regularly.The campaign features US soccer player and Olympic gold medalist Alex Morgan, who shares how playing sports when she was young helped build her confidence.

Alex recalls here a time that she was discouraged from playing a sport “around the age of 14 I was very discouraged from a coach. It was my first youth club team while playing soccer. She told me at the time that I wasn’t good enough to play on the team, that I would never get into the game.” Alex is proud to be part of #LikeAGirl “My goal is to show girls that I‘m fighting so they have to.”

The #2 spot on the YouTube Olympic Sponsors chart is the P&G Thank You Mom Campaign that has also been revived. Their new spot, Thank You, Mom – Strong has been released just in time for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. I wrote about this campaign when it originally launched in this post for the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games. This spot continues to pull on the emotional heartstrings, especially for us moms.

Next week I’ll review another marketing campaign associated with the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. So stay tuned and enjoy the games.