Forbes.com, a leading Internet media company, is among the most trusted resources for the world's business and investment leaders. The influential site is currently conducting its 2nd annual Boost Your Business contest, and Promosis is proud to once again be playing a supporting role in the effort.

The contest provides a unique opportunity for HP - the sponsor of the program - to be integrated into the program and be indelibly associated with providing solutions for small business. The contest also helps retain current site members while attracting new registrations, which in turn leads to increased revenue for Forbes.com.

Promosis aided Forbes.com effort by:

• Providing contest administration, including program structure, instructions, official rules, assembling an academic judging panel, overseeing the voting process and winner notification and eligibility clearance.
• Creating, programming and hosting the candidate entry form
• Developing, programming and hosting the voting site including vote validation to reduce counterfeit and script-generated votes AND a leader board to make the voting competition more engaging

Forbes also has access to a real-time activity report page to help monitor both voting activity and contestant ranking.  

Brett Nelson, Forbes.com Entrepreneurs Editor comments:

"The great thing about this contest is that it not only gives entrepreneurs a shot at some
real money, it also gives our readers a fun opportunity to play the role of investors.

Better yet, thanks to great work by Promosis, the contest entry and the voting experience is very smooth
and easy and we learn a lot from having Promosis involved and watching the activity with their professional eye."

Thanks for visiting, and please don't hesitate to share your thoughts and ideas with us and others who share your interest in getting your target audience to ACT; just click below on the "comment" link.

Best wishes,

Harry

Last week we announced that Brooklyn Brewery hired us to manage the legal aspects of its upcoming sweepstakes. Now Chico’s, a sophisticated women’s clothing and accessory retailer, is hiring Promosis to aid them with both legal and implementation details for their first national in-store sweepstakes.

Liz Hodges, Chico’s Brand Manager, is an expert at merchandising clothes, but to implement a promotion she recognized the need for a specialist to handle all the details, including legal, in-store marketing consultation, point-of-sale creative, high-quality durable entry boxes and assembling & shipping the materials to all 625 stores on time - that's why Chico’s selected Promosis.

The goal of the promotion is to increase store traffic resulting from the “Summer 2008” mailer. This program is the first of several that Chico's is planning to bring added value and excitement to the Chico's shopper, each anchored by high profile luxury brand partnerships. The promotions not only create an event in each Chico's store, but will bring Chico's quality to the customers of the partner brands.

Susan Faw, Chico’s Corporate Counsel comments:

"Promosis guided us through the detailed planning of our sweepstakes and handled all administration, bringing much needed experience and expertise to the table. They know how to implement promotions as well. They are now producing POS creative, elegant acrylic entry boxes and getting it to all 600+ of our stores.  We now have a partner in place to call on when our next sweepstakes opportunity arises."

Thanks for visiting, and please don't hesitate to share your thoughts and ideas with us and others who share your interest in getting your target audience to ACT; just click below on the "comment" link.

Best wishes,

Harry

Sweepstakes sponsored by adult-beverage companies are typically legal, but they do carry their own special set of legal obstacles. That's why The Brooklyn Brewery and their agency thehappycorp selected Promosis to ensure the Brewery's upcoming promotion is as legal as it is effective.

The goal of the promotion is to raise awareness of Brooklyn Brewery products and their great taste when accompanied with foods typically paired with wine -- such as cheese. The sweepstakes will be offered to Brooklyn Brewery customers in off-premise retail locations and online, to residents of approximately 15 states in June and July, 2008. The prizes consist of eight beer and cheese pairing tastings for ten (the winner and nine guests) to be held at a location in each winner’s local market, and hosted by The Brooklyn Brewery’s renowned brew master Garrett Oliver. What's our role in the effort?

Promosis is providing sweepstakes administration, which includes official rules, disclaimer copy, marketing materials review, indemnification, and winner drawing, notification, and clearances. As part of our services, we'll perform additional due diligence to ensure the promotion - due to its alcohol content - is legal in the states in which it is offered.  Finally, we're providing web programming and hosting for the sweepstakes web site, where the program is offered and the entries are captured. Oh - we'll handle all the fun tax-related stuff, too!

Lysandra Gibbs, Marketing Manager for The Brooklyn Brewery, says the following about her Company's new relationship with Promosis:

"We are really excited about working with Promosis on our Beer and Cheese tasting promotion.  Their expertise in online and offline sweepstakes is a very beneficial addition to our program and will undoubtedly add to our success."

Thanks, Lysandra!

Thanks for visiting, and please don't hesitate to share your thoughts and ideas with us and others who share your interest in getting your target audience to ACT; just click below on the "comment" link.

Best wishes,

Harry

Preliminary winner notification and clearance is a critically important element of skill contest administration. Without it, you could throw away the goodwill you worked to gain, and incur unexpected legal fees and greater prize expense.

Club Libby Lu, a national chain of stores primarily for "tween" girls, conducted a contest offering a grand prize of a Hannah Montana concert experience. To enter, a participant needed to submit an essay detailing why she was most deserving of the prize.

Unfortunately, Club Libby Lu discovered their winning entrant falsified her entry - but not until after they awarded it to her. Though they selected another entrant as the grand prize winner, there remain unanswered questions. Did the official rules clearly forbid the entrant from receiving assistance and submitting a work of fiction? Was the sponsor within its rights to withdraw a prize it had already awarded? And could the initial winner file a lawsuit?

What's the lesson learned? The creative can dazzle and the prize pop, but you need to ensure your contest official rules clearly state your entry criteria and judging process. If you'd feel more comfortable having an independent judging organization manage your program, Promosis has administered countless skill contests and can help you avoid the problems that often accompany a poorly-managed contest. Now, ready for recess after your short promotion lesson?

Click here NOW to play our instant-win game, and you could WIN a delicious New England lobster clambake for two - shipped right to your door!

As always, you'll also earn 50 points, but instead of limiting your gift card choice to just a handful of merchants, we're offering a Prepaid Visa card good at millions of retail and e-commerce stores!

Thanks for visiting, and please don't hesitate to share your thoughts and ideas with us and others who share your interest in getting your target audience to ACT; just click below on the "comment" link.

Best wishes,

Harry

A sweepstakes can be a perfect tool for motivating your audience to take action. However, it needs to be carefully administered to ensure it meets specific guidelines in order for it to be a legal game of chance - and NOT an illegal lottery.

A California court recently published a decision supporting a class-action lawsuit asserting that the text message sweepstakes run in connection with game shows Deal or No Deal, 1 vs. 100, and The Apprentice were in fact illegal lotteries.

The game shows offered two methods of entry: Via text messaging, for which standard airtime fees and a $.99 premium were charged, and through a web site, for which no purchase was required. The problem was with the fee associated with the text message entry. Even though a no purchase option was available, the plaintiff argued that the sweepstakes was illegal because entrants paid for sending the text message in return for nothing of value - no good or service - other than a chance to win the prize.

The lesson to take from this is that a free method of entry will not prevent your sweepstakes from being an illegal lottery if you're charging a fee solely to enter the promotion.

Thanks for visiting, and please don't hesitate to share your thoughts and ideas with us and others who share your interest in getting your target audience to ACT; just click below on the "comment" link.

Best wishes,

Harry

PS: Coming soon - opportunities to earn points and win dynamite prizes in our PROMOpoints instant-win game!

Tricky. Time-consuming. Two adjectives that can be applied when designing a web site that looks good AND functions as it should in both Microsoft Explorer and Mozilla.

Earlier this week, Apple rolled out a Windows-based version of its own Safari web browser. Why? According to this USA Today article, "Safari is another enticement for the Windows community to look at the Mac platform," says Van Baker, an analyst at market researcher Gartner. "If it can bring some new people into the fold, perhaps a few percentage points, that's goodness."

How might the Safari availability for Windows affect you? Currently about 5% of web users utilize Safari. However, if Safari gains traction, your web site will need to be bulletproof when viewed in three different browsers. This greater design and programming complexity will affect both pricing and production time -- something to keep in mind when planning your next program if it contains any web-based elements.

Thanks for visiting, and please don't hesitate to share your thoughts and ideas with us and others who share your interest in getting your target audience to ACT; just click below on the "comment" link.

Best wishes,

Harry

PS: Congratulations to Lisa Brown of HealthLeaders Media and Meredith Little of Gourmet Magazine -- both winners of this month's PROMOpoints instant-win prize of a pair of Bose® in-ear headphones!

Ahoy! To coincide with our 10th Anniversary, we'd like to introduce our blog, in which we'll try to provide you with on-the-wave promotion and direct-marketing information and opinion. Hey, we might even throw in some tidbits about our office and home lives just for a bit of entertainment ;-).

We are blogging with you in an effort to provide you more regular - and timely - communications. The blog format also supports a conversation between us and YOU.

You might be saying to yourself, "Blog, great - what about PROMOpoints? I want to WIN stuff!"

No worries, PROMOpoints isn't going anywhere. As we'll be updating the blog more frequently, Instant-Win prizes won't accompany every entry, but we will offer the opportunity to WIN on a monthly basis. And, one special posting each month will provide you the opportunity to earn 50 points just by checking out the blog then signing in to your PROMOpoints account.

That said, click here NOW to play our instant-win game, and you could WIN 1 of 2 pairs of Bose(R) In-Ear Headphones!

As always, you'll also earn 50 points, but instead of limiting your gift card choice to just a handful of merchants, we're offering a Prepaid Visa card good at millions of retail and e-commerce stores!

Thanks for visiting, and please don't hesitate to share your thoughts and ideas with us and others who share your interest in getting your target audience to ACT.

Best wishes,

Harry