PR Move of the Day. We like to highlight those “little” activations that perhaps can grow into major market ones, so courtesy of Ben Hill's Minor League blog we found the AAA Sacramento River Cats who hid a Golden Ticket (ala Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) in one of 500 bags of peanuts throughout the city. The winner of the ticket got a pair of opening day tickets for the River Cats. Seems simple, but the outside ballpark activation, the added sales for the peanut brand, the opportunity to capture the winner redeeming the ticket, not to mention if there was an online activation, could easily be applied to a much larger audience with the right partner. Great way to take the brand and the event outside the walls of a stadium and hit all the goals one needs to for proper, innovative activation for consumer, brand and casual fan.
Some other reads worth taking a look at…first on the Olympic side Karen Crouse of the New York Times has a great piece today on the growing controversy surrounding the new engineering in Speedo's swimsuits which will be used this summer and are shaving world records when being used…first of all great branding and long term exposure leading into the Olympics for one of the world's hallmark sports brands…secondly, will be interesting to see how some of the terms used in the piece, including “drugs on a hangar” find their way into the sports lexicon going forward…like in auto racing, could this be the next great controversy, not altering the athlete but altering the clothe. Also on the Olympic side, USA Today had a followup on the choices sponsors may have to make this summer if controversy continues…also on the branding side, the Birmingham News has a good detail piece on the AA Barons new logo and apparel line, which they think will reinvigorate sales in the highly competitive minor league apparel business… for those who don’t know, Portfolio.com has some great sports and media branding pieces on a weekly basis…this week, with tax day on the horizon, Franz Lidz has a nice portrait of UFC superstar Chuck Lidell and his accounting background, a great “other side” story to show the personalities of athletes sometimes thought of by the general public as brawlers…lastly two good backgrounders on NHL owners worth reading…the Washington Times has a solid profile on the Caps Ted Leonsis, and Bloomberg has a very interesting piece on the Devils Jeff Vanderbeek, and his thoughts on why the Prudential Center could not be built in today's financial climate.
