Activation Tactic: Coach for the Day
Are you looking for new ways to leverage athlete endorsers? Are you looking to create a captivating promotional campaign targeted at young adults?
Powerade has teamed up with Carolina Panthers WR Steve Smith to create an offer for high school football players to win the chance to have Smith coach their football team for a day. The promotional site - http://powerade-coachfortheday.com - was built in support of Powerade's Mountain Berry Blast flavor (with ION4) and features the unique promotion, training tips, and supporting videos.
Participants can enter to win by simply logging onto the site and submitting an entry form that includes an essay of 89 words or less describing how one's high school football team would benefit from having Steve Smith be coach for a day (symbolic of Smith, who wears #89 for the Panthers).
Powerade's campaign (and its promotional site) is extremely simple, yet can serve as a very effective platform if marketed properly to the target demographic. It will be interesting to see if Powerade models this campaign with all of its endorsers - the program could have a lot of legs.
Sports organizations looking for new ways to make an impact in the local community should consider modeling Powerade's "Coach for the Day" platform. The promotion could serve as a terrific way to engage young fans and offer and additional interactive element on the team home page. It would be terrific to see a team showcase a player volunteering to coach a local HS team on the videoboard during halftime.
Brian Gainor is a passionate sports marketer with agency experience as well as an extensive background working in the NFL, NFL Europe, and collegiate athletics. Brian completed his MBA/MSA graduate work at Ohio University (Athens, OH) and currently resides in Charlotte, NC. As a Sports Partnership Activation Consultant, Brian created Partnership Activation, Inc. to provide sports business professionals with "industry best practices" - creative ideas that provide opportunities to generate incremental revenue. Be sure to check out all of Brian's past posts, too.
