High School Couple Wins Scholarships for Wearing Duct Tape to Prom
Duck Tape continues to come up with novel ways of promoting its brand, even to younger generations.
For the seventh year, Henkel Corp., which markets the Duck brand, hosted its Stuck at Prom Scholarship Contest. This year’s winners announced July 9—Adrienne Beiler, Salisbury, PA, and Zac Cupler, Grantsville, MD—beat out more than 180 couples from 43 states and three Canadian provinces. To view all of the duct entries, visit StuckAtProm.com.
Beiler, 15, and Cupler, 18, each received $3,000. Salisbury-Elk Lick High School in Salisbury, Pa., was also awarded $3,000 for hosting the prom.
“This year’s contest was different in that we left it up to the public to decide who won, which made the contest that much more fun and surprising,” said Michelle Heffner, digital communications manager for Henkel in a statement.
Impressed with her sewing talent, Beiler’s home economics teachers suggested that she enter the contest.
“We worked on the dress and tuxedo for about a year and used around 40 rolls of duct tape,” Beiler said.
The couple used brown, pink, orange, green and yellow duct tape to create the flowery Southern belle dress and traditional suit. Weighing in at 25 pounds, Beiler’s three-piece dress included a hoop skirt with multiple layers of colored Duct Tape and textured flowers. Cupler’s brown suit and hot pink shirt complemented his date’s ensemble. Both were accessorized to complete the look of the outfits. Cupler sported a hat and cane, while Beiler carried a Duct Taped parasol and handbag.
Second and third place couples, each receiving $2,000 and $1,000 respectively, were also rewarded by the company.
A panel of judges narrowed the contestants down to 10 finalist couples. Entries were judged on a number of criteria, including workmanship, originality, use of colors, accessories and quantity of duct tape used. The public then voted for their favorite ensembles during a two-week online voting period, with each finalist couple promoting themselves, using everything from flyers to parades to the Web, to earn votes. Approximately 51,000 votes were submitted for all finalists, determining Beiler and Cupler as the winning couple.
Duck Tape is also in the midst of a $5,000 consumer-generated content contest, soliciting homemade videos for people to submit their stories of how Duct Tape came to the rescue in their lives. The contest was recently advertised in Parade magazine.
The deadline for the promotion is Dec. 31, 2007. All entries will be posted online, and the winners will be announced on or around Jan. 15, 2008. The first place winner also receives a year’s supply of Duck Tape.
