Marketers challenge consumers to Super Bowl contests

By
Laura Petrecca and Theresa Howard, USA TODAY
January 29, 2008, 7:04 PM ET
4 min read

— -- Marketers are playing up the "u" in Super Bowl for their game promotions.

Companies such as KFC YUM, Upper Deck, Frito-Lay PEP and Molson Coors Brewing taphave all launched promotions that ask "you" — the consumer — to sing, dance, act or photograph your way to Super Bowl-related prizes.

KFC's contest, which began Tuesday, invites football and fried chicken fans to upload video of themselves doing an arm-flapping "chicken dance" at ShowUsYourHotWings.com. The most creative dancer wins a KFC-catered Super Sunday party package that also includes a new flat-panel TV, limo service for the guests and cleaning team to tidy up the next day.

The consumer-focused contests come as companies vie to generate more interaction with their brands. Past customer participation may have simply meant filling in a sweepstakes form, but now, in many cases, it means doing a trick for the treat.

"This is a way to get our customers really engaged," says KFC chief marketing Officer James O'Reilly.

"You"-themed Super Bowl contests began to catch on last year.

Frito-Lay's Doritos asked consumers to upload 30-second videos praising its chips. More than 1,000 were entered, and two winners aired as Doritos ads in the game.

Alka-Seltzer invited consumers to rewrite its "Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz" jingle. Hundreds participated, and the winning song was showcased in a pregame ad.

This year, marketers — and consumers — are back in action. A look at performance-related promotions linked to Super Bowl XLII:

•Upper Deck. The trading-card maker's Touchdown Dance Challenge asked consumers to submit videos of their best end-zone celebration to UpperDeckSweepstakes.magnify.net. An Upper Deck team will pick "the most original and creative entry that sparks laughter," says spokesman Terry Melia. That dance champ will get two tickets to the Feb. 3 game, plus Phoenix airfare and hotel.

•Coors Light. Fans can upload a video plea to CoorsLight.com or CoorsBeer.com that tells why they deserve tickets to the Big Game. The most creative and persuasive beggars will win tickets to this year's game in Phoenix or next year's in Tampa. Airfare and hotel are included.

"Taking a look around with YouTube, the growth of consumer-generated media and people's desire to demonstrate their individuality, we thought it would be great to provide consumers with (this) opportunity," says Bryce McTavish, sponsorship vice president. Site visits are up 21% since the contest started Dec. 17, he says.

•Doritos. This year it invited musicians to submit original songs at myspace.com/DoritosCrashTheSuperBowl. (They didn't have to be about chips.) The song that wins online voting will air as a 60-second music video in the Super Bowl.

•Canon caj.More than 4,000 photos were entered after it asked amateur shutterbugs for shots of youth football games. A panel, including former National Football League quarterback Archie Manning, picked 14 finalists in each of two categories — "action" and "feature" — for online voting for winning photos.

The action winner, by 16-year-old Nate Shron, features a Sudbury, Mass., high school player in mid-catch. The feature winner, from 41-year-old Diana Porter, shows a boy with his head on a teammate's shoulder after they lost a coin toss.

"Canon is trying to reach out past the NFL photographers and pro sports people to those people who take 90% of the pictures," says Porter. Canon wants to court consumers "like me who are out in 110-degree weather on those youth football fields."

•KFC. In addition to asking regular folks to participate in its chicken-dance challenge, it also will involve Super Bowl pros. KFC will send letters to Patriots and Giants players, as well as halftime performer Tom Petty, asking them to do a chicken dance in the end zone or, for Petty, on stage. If anyone does it, KFC will donate $260,000 to Colonel's Scholars, which provides college scholarships.