Consumers desperately searching through a three-foot-deep pool of slushy, slippery mud to find sticks may drive home a new Jeep. It’s the brand’s latest stunt to engage consumers and get them digging for a chance to win the grand prize.
On Sept. 29, the start of the State Fair of Texas, up to 120 randomly selected consumers who register at JeepStickInTheMudChallenge.com will participate in the Jeep Stick in the Mud Challenge to win the brand’s first four-door Jeep Wrangler.
Participants will wade through a mud-filled above-ground pool to find sticks that each carry a specific point value. The participant with the most points in the final round wins the Jeep. Consumers enter at JeepStickInTheMudChallenge.com by Sept. 15 for a chance to get muddied up and win the prize.
Keeping with the theme of the four-door Jeep (the 4X4X4 Wrangler), the contest will be based on multiples of four with three rounds of competition—qualifying, semi-final and final. Qualifying rounds will include eight rounds of eight to 15 contestants. The semi-final round will see 16 contestants competing in four rounds of four contestants. And the final round will feature four contestants.
“We wanted to build awareness of the all new 2007 Jeep Wrangler arriving in the Texas market and across the country, and to have a lot of fun which is the way Jeep normally does things,” said Jeep spokesperson Carrie McElwee. “Consumers normally know how to do things with their Jeeps that gets them dirty, we thought that people wanting to win one wouldn’t mind getting dirty too.”
For their efforts, participants will receive branded T-shirts and hats when the search through the 23-foot-long mud pool ends. P.r. efforts and local radio station mentions support.
During the fair, which ends Oct. 22, Jeep, an Auburn Hills, MI-based DaimlerChrysler brand, will activate with in-door and outdoor displays of the Wrangler and other DaimlerChrysler vehicles.
“We wanted to do something in the Texas market and [the contest] just seemed like a fun State Fair type of event,” McElwee said. The fair, held on a 277-acre entertainment and recreation complex in Dallas, attracts 3 million people each year.
Despite the Texas activation, McElwee said that the brand’s recent promotion—in which consumers dug up a California beach in search of the keys to a Jeep Compass—drew entrants from as far away as New York and Atlanta (PROMO Xtra, June 28, 2006). Clear Blue, Chicago, handles.
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