Advertiser-Sponsored Online Game Tournaments on PCHGames.com
While this is nothing new (ad-sponsored games), this tournament is an exciting twist on the old idea.
Publishers Clearing House (PCH) today announced at Ad-Tech San Francisco the introduction of advertiser-sponsored tournaments for free online games on PCHGames.com. Sponsorship exposes a brand to more than eight million targeted loyal PCH site visitors and drives an estimated 200,000 potential customers per tournament to an advertiser’s Web site. Tournament games include Mahjongg and Solitaire, which are two of the most popular games online and on PCHGames.com. In February 2010 PCHGames.com had 16 million game plays, 1.6 million unique visitors, 5 million visits and 28.8 million page views. Tournaments are developed in conjunction with casual game developer Arkadium.
The next tournament, Mom-Jongg, a Mother’s Day inspired version of the popular Mah-Jongg classic tile game, is taking place on April 28th and includes cash prizes of $1,000, $500 and $250. In addition, the top 25 scorers will earn 1,000 tokens, which can be used to win prizes including Amazon and Walmart gift cards or entries into PCH sweepstakes.
“PCHGames.com site visitors are highly motivated and engaged, especially when they have a chance to win cash just for logging on and playing their favorite games,” said Josh Glantz, vice president and general manager of PCH Online. “During the last tournament there were more than 540,000 games played in 24 hours. As the popularity of these tournaments increases the number of free online game plays continues to rise and ultimately makes this a very successful program for sponsoring advertisers.”
The advertiser-sponsored tournaments present a number of opportunities for brand messages and offers to be communicated throughout PCH’s stable portfolio of online properties, as well as through the company’s opt-in database of email subscribers. In addition to the customized tournament landing page sponsors also receive takeover ads, featured placement on the homepage of PCHGames.com, banner ads throughout the network, pre-roll and post-roll ads before the game begins and when it ends, custom tournament and partner emails and much more.
“Our online game tournaments provide a great way for advertisers to reach a targeted audience with multiple touch points at a time when they are engaged and hoping to win big,” said Michael Zane, director of online marketing at Publishers Clearing House. “Our team at PCHGames.com works closely with participating advertisers to obtain artwork and messaging, and then manages the tournament in its entirety. It’s a simple process that results in an entertaining and rewarding experience for those who play, as well as a great marketing success story for participating brands.”
Read MoreWin a GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr Mini from BenSpark.com
Drew has done a great job on his picture-a-day project at BenSpark.com. Friday marked day one of his 6th year on this project, which is amazing and quite a feat. If you go on over to BenSpark.com, you can enter to win a GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr Mini. The PhotoTrackr logs GPS coordinates and allows for extremely easy geo-tagging of your photos. This is a handy gizmo for any person who takes a large number of photos, whether at a conference or otherwise.
Right now you can enter to win one of 4 of these handy tracker’s here. Go congratulate Drew on 6 years of amazing blogging and enter to win!
Read MoreWho would you donate $5000 to?
I’ve been asking this question of myself for a long while tonight, after reading about the contest that John Chow is having, sponsored by tiny url service XR.com. In his contest, he’s giving the winner $6000 – $5000 will be donated to the charity of the winner’s choice and $1000 will be given to the winner directly to do with as they wish.
XR.com is a great service that allows you to shorten a URL and create a custom extension. For example, if I wanted to shorten the URL of this post I can enter it in at XR.com and create http://xr.com/donate5000. The beauty of signing up for a free account with XR is that you can keep track of all these redirected tiny URLS so you can use them repeatedly. That URL went from 62 characters to 17! It’s perfect when you’re not allowed a lot of characters to work with, like on Twitter.
The $1000 isn’t that easy either. My gut immediately says that I want to buy Guitar Hero World Tour & use the rest of the money for the Bahamian cruise I’m taking with friends in February. But then there are bills that could be paid off. Hand-me-down furniture that could be replaced. But since I’ve already committed to this trip, I believe I’ll use it for the cruise bills. That way I don’t have to put too much on my credit card.
Back to the donation to charity. A few worthy causes come to mind immediately – The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Fund, American Diabetes Association, St. Jude Children’s Hospital, Make a Wish, the list goes on. These are charities that I believe in and believe that they could do a lot of good things with $5000. But, maybe I should stick with something closer to home? Make my community a better place, eh? So I did some Googlin’ for local charities, and I wasn’t overly impressed by anything. It also occurred to me that deciding to donate to charity based on a quick read of a mission statement isn’t very responsible.
So I’ve decided to donate the money as a way to give back to a non-profit organization that did so much for me in my youth – Girl Scouts of Northern California. Specifically, I will donate the money to a fund that helped me continue my membership for 12 years, go to summer camp in the sierras of California, and attend many other trips and activities that provided vast opportunities for me to learn new things and grow into a confident young woman.
The Opportunity Fund provides financial assistance that helps girls go to camp, covers their Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. membership, and allows them to participate in Girl Scout activities regardless of their families’ financial resources.
I can’t think of a better way to give back to an organization that gave me so much. This donation will give young girls the opportunities to expand their horizons, built their internal strength, and learn how to be better citizens in this global community.
That’s what I’d do… so I’m hoping that I win so I can fulfill that desire to give back.
Who would you donate $5000 to?
Read MoreCongrats to Eric Odom! ACL Pass is YOURS!
That’s right, the winner of the Affiliate Classroom Live! pass is Eric J. Odom. Eric, please e-mail your name and address to me so we can give the information to ACL and get that ticket to you!
Thank you to everyone who entered!
Read MoreLast Call for Affiliate Classroom Live! Pass
This is all she wrote, folks! I’m giving you until 7pm PST to enter to win my available pass to Affiliate Classroom Live! August 9th at the Boston Seaport Hotel in Boston, MA. This is conveniently the day before Affiliate Summit East kicks off, so if you’re attending ASE, you can work this easily into your schedule.
The Affiliate Classroom Live! pass is a $300 value. Learn from and interact with the industry’s top professionals… somehow including myself! This half-day workshop for affiliate managers will focus on:
- Networking – We’ll place you in peer groups where you can meet one another and begin building relationships.
- Roundtable Discussions – Join with your peers and a topical expert to discuss affiliate marketing best practices and advanced affiliate management strategies.
The speakers will be:
- Peter Figueredo
- Trisha Fawver (yes, that’s me)
- Lee Gientke
- Sam Harrelson
- Rebecca Madigan
- Heather Paulson
- Lisa Riolo
- Brad Waller
The winner will be drawn at random – all you have to do is email your interest to Contests@Trishalyn.com to enter! I will announce the winner tomorrow.
Read MoreNeed a pass to Affiliate Classroom Live? Enter to win one!
I posted a couple weeks ago that the kind folks at Affiliate Classroom Live have given me a free pass for the person of my choosing since I’ll be leading a round table discussion during the event. I’ve decided to have a contest, and as a reminder the deadline is July 7th, next Monday!
More details can be found at my original post. All you to have to do to enter is email your name and address to Contests@TrishaLyn.com. The winner will be picked at random from all entries on July 7th!
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