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Corona & Pro Motion Celebrate Soccer’s Premier Event

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Sand Foosball Tournament in Four U.S. Cities Invite Soccer Fans to Join In Their Favorite Game, Win Mexican Vacations

As the world’s soccer fans turn their attention to South Africa to enjoy the ultimate event in professional soccer, Corona and experiential marketing firm Pro Motion have developed a fun way to introduce Hispanic soccer fans to Corona products while playing along with their favorite game on a somewhat smaller, but still exciting, scale. Corona Extra and Corona Light will be hosting “Corona al Campeon” sand foosball tournaments at select sports bars in predominantly Hispanic areas of four U.S. cities: Chicago, Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The “sand” – actually shuffleboard wax – will help give players the feeling of playing beach soccer and will add a fun and challenging component to the game of foosball. Two winners from Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles  will win a trip for two to Mexico to meet and watch the Mexican national soccer team play at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City.  Two sweepstakes' winners from Miami will be awarded the same grand prize.

“This promotion is a great way for soccer fans to enjoy world-class soccer viewing at their favorite sports bar while playing everyone’s favorite bar game – foosball – and enjoying Corona, everyone’s favorite beach beer,” said Pro Motion President Steve Randazzo. “Adding sand gives the whole tournament a fun tropical feel that puts everyone in the mood to compete for a once-in-a-lifetime experience in Mexico City.”

In addition to refereeing the foosball tournaments, Pro Motion Brand Ambassadors fluent in English and Spanish will be on hand to distribute samples of Corona Extra and Corona Light. Pro Motion is working with Crown Imports LLC, Corona and Corona Light’s North American distributor, to manage the foosball tournament scheduled to begin May 17 and run through June 26, 2010. For a complete list of participating sports bars, dates and times for the tournament, see below. Fans in other cities can follow the foosball tournament action on Pro Motion’s Flickr site.

Please see below for a list of particpating locations.  Please check back often as the scheudle will be updated frequently.  Locations, dates and times are subject to change.

Pro Motion is a St. Louis-based experiential marketing agency that brings brands to life via face-to-face sampling, guerrilla marketing, sponsorship activation, mobile vehicle tours and stunts. Our programs increase the impact of branding, marketing and public relations initiatives by engaging consumers directly, converting tryers into buyers. For more information follow Pro Motion on Facebook or Twitter.

PR News Online: Face-To-Face Still Out Front In Communications Efforts

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March 22, 2010

Not surprisingly, Steve Randazzo, president of field marketing agency Pro Motion, is bullish on face-to-face interaction. “It provides so much more depth than something like social media can,” he says. Randazzo predicts experiential event-led efforts will continue to be in demand, “simply because there’s now less opportunity to be face-to-face.” But for such campaigns to succeed, he says, integration with PR and marketing functions are key. “We all have to play well together in the sandbox,” he says. Here are Randazzo’s key steps to enabling such collaboration:

• Integrate functions early in the planning process
• Be sure the strategy is consistent across all campaign stakeholders
• Integrate creative elements throughout
• Allow consistent messaging at all points of contact
• Clear cross-discipline communication; have one lead agency
• Hire specialists who will add value
• Map the complete process and experience
• Establish tracking and reporting benchmarks and expectations
• Allow for time to do media training of field team

Pro Motion is a St. Louis-based experiential marketing agency that brings brands to life via face-to-face sampling, guerrilla marketing, sponsorship activation, mobile vehicle tours and stunts. Our programs increase the impact of branding, marketing and public relations initiatives by engaging consumers directly, converting tryers into buyers. For more information follow Pro Motion on Facebook or Twitter.

PR News Online Case Study: CNN PR and Marketing Teams Hitch Election Ratings Fortunes to an Interactive Airstream

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March 22, 2010
Company: CNN
Agency: Pro Motion
Timeframe: 2008

The latter half of 2008 was a special time in U.S. history. The nation’s first African-American Democratic presidential nominee was running neck and neck with an experienced Republican candidate, and history was in the making. The pressure on both Barack Obama and John McCain was intense.
Nearly as intense, however, was the battle between the leading television networks to win the election ratings war. The presidential election had become a worldwide affair, as a curious and engaged public watched and waited to see who would win. It was a time when perennial election night ratings leader CNN knew it had to pull out all the stops to maintain its dominance in the broadcast race to election night.

Recognizing the public passion generated by the close campaign and the desire of citizens to take part in the political process, CNN decided to take its campaign to the people as well. Direct, face-to-face engagement with the voting public would, in a sense, mirror the presidential campaign—criss-crossing the nation, traveling thousands of miles and meeting thousands of people who would share their thoughts, feelings and impressions of the candidates.

“The nation was politically divided, and we couldn’t ignore that,” says April Andrews, publicist at CNN. “We wanted to have a two-way conversation on the ground, giving the public a real voice.”
To enable this conversation, Atlanta-based CNN turned to a communications platform that might not have the sexiness of social media, but is still top-of-mind with most organizations: the live event (see graphic). CNN rolled out a not-so-secret weapon: a classic silver Airstream RV that was transformed into a mobile production studio, and surrounded by an “Express Yourself” mini-village filled with interactive political tools for the public. In essence, the Airstream would act not only as a conversation conduit, but as a veritable content machine, providing the network with enough stories and participant-produced videos to last until the presidential winner was determined.

The Express Yourself effort was born during the hotly contested midterm elections of 2006, when it helped propel CNN to the top of the ratings heap.
But could the Airstream successfully drive CNN’s ratings once more? It would take a truly integrated effort from CNN’s PR and marketing functions, and from St. Louis- based field marketing agency Pro Motion.

TRIP PLANNING
Luckily, CNN’s marketing and PR departments do not operate in silos. “We’re really joined at the hip,” says Keisha Taylor, CNN’s marketing manager. It was also advantageous to have planned and executed the prior Express Yourself effort.
The first step was to collaborate on a timeline and plot the campaign route across the country. Main targets were the Republican and Democratic conventions and presidential and vice presidential debates.

Around those stops, Express Yourself would visit high schools and colleges, state fairs, festivals and a few shopping malls (more on that later). “We wanted to get to as many parts of the country as we could,” says Taylor. “And we also wanted to make sure we had flexibility, in case something newsworthy happened and we needed to make a change in the schedule.”
The schools were key, says Andrews, because one target audience was first-time voters, a demographic ripe for introduction to the CNN brand.
Once the route was set, the PR team went to work with local outreach for each stop. “We made sure to invite the local press, and put announcements calendar sections announcing the date of arrival,” says Andrews.

Meanwhile, Pro Motion president Steve Randazzo and his team were creating a highly interactive touch point for not only CNN consumers, but also cable partners, affiliates and advertisers. The “Express Yourself” mini-village was anchored by the Airstream, which would be outfitted to serve as a video production studio. There, visitors could record a short video profile expressing their views on the campaign, which then would be broadcast by CNN on air and online to promote their election coverage. In addition, CNN would do live shots from the site to further promote the effort.
Randazzo and the CNN team based the planning on two key questions: What is best way to get them to talk to us, and how do we collect that content as feedback? The videos were one way, but there were many other points of interaction. Outside the Airstream, a variety of activities would draw consumers in and give them multiple opportunities to express their political views to CNN. Those activities included:

• A graffiti wall on which visitors wrote their opinions
• Political memorabilia button-making stations
• On-site texting services so visitors could text their views directly to CNN
• TV kiosks to lure visitors to watch the cable channel
• An Internet café
• Computer polling stations to provide the network with instant data for live reports.

In addition, through CNN.com’s iReport feature, visitors also could send in content captured on personal video cameras and cell phones for potential broadcast. And, to further involve CNN’s vital cable partners, affiliates, advertisers and other stakeholders, there were catered VIP cocktail receptions at each tour stop.

LONG, STRANGE TRIP
The Express Yourself tour began in September at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, and visited 23 other cities en route to its final stop on election day in New York City’s Times Square.

Although Pro Motion handled on-site logistics, PR was there every step of the way. Says Andrews, “We worked with national and local affiliates, giving tours of site.” And being in close contact with an energized public and involved in live broadcasting, much of Andrews’ engagement activities were “off the cuff”—i.e. arranging for quick interviews and directing people to various activities.

There were bound to be challenges, and a big one was the weather. “It was so cold once we got to New York,” says Andrews. “It was hard to get people to stay on the site for the live shots.”
A destination choice also proved to be a challenge, and something CNN would rethink. “Going to malls was a huge lesson learned, because we quickly found out that people were there to shop, not to talk politics,” says Andrews. In contrast, Taylor wishes they could have stayed longer in some of the cities, particularly the college towns. “The enthusiasm level of the students were off the charts,” she says.

BROADCAST BONANZA

Also off the charts were the final numbers. In eight weeks, the CNN Express Yourself tour covered 9,000-plus miles and attracted more than 50,000 participants along the way. Over 2,000 iReports were created by the public, which led to mountains of available video content to show on-air and online.

The campaign team distributed more than 100,000 CNN-branded items, including the wildly popular do-it-yourself election buttons. “We probably gave away 25,000 of those,” says Randazzo.
The broadcast numbers also proved successful. CNN had the largest election night viewership among cable networks, and election night was the channel’s most watched primetime event ever, with an average of 12.3 million viewers, 3 million ahead of closest competitor Fox News.

Gary Brockman, Turner Network Services vice president of marketing and operations, said that the Express Yourself Tour was the “crown jewel” of CNN’s election strategy, and the Airstream is firmly established as a permanent CNN election “vehicle.”

Tweaks for the next election cycle? Taylor says a social media component is bound to be added to the tour, especially considering their new audience of first-time student voters.

http://www.prnewsonline.com/corporate/13806.html

Pro Motion is a St. Louis-based experiential marketing agency that brings brands to life via face-to-face sampling, guerrilla marketing, sponsorship activation, mobile vehicle tours and stunts. Our programs increase the impact of branding, marketing and public relations initiatives by engaging consumers directly, converting tryers into buyers. For more information follow Pro Motion on Facebook or Twitter.