Lights, Camera, Auction
Bringing all facets of entertainment to one destination, eBay rolled out the red carpet for the launch of eBay Entertainment in September 2003. The online auction site offers new and used music, movies, video games, tickets and entertainment memorabilia. EBay used both offline and online tactics to draw consumers to the site.
“As we looked at this program, one of the biggest challenges that we faced was getting our users to visit eBay Entertainment,” says Julie Haddon, director of consumer promotions for eBay. “We wanted to showcase the millions of listings and selection of items ranging from movies and music to entertainment memorabilia and show people a better way to buy entertainment.”
To bring consumers to the site, eBay and Zipatoni, St. Louis, launched the Imagine What You’ll Find, Imagine What You’ll Win promotion. The online instant-win game directed consumers to type in one of their favorite entertainment keywords from the list provided and imagine what they would find at eBay Entertainment. The keywords brought consumers to a dynamic landing page where they could plug in their game piece codes for prizes. The promotion featured over 5,000 entertainment prizes with a total retail value of $146,500.
Relevant offline entertainment partners, street teams in five markets and a radio campaign delivered the promotion. EBay partnered with 12 entertainment brands that reinforced the entertainment ties. Prizes and distribution were provided by E! Networks, Loews Cineplex Entertainment, Disney and Disney Auctions, Elvis Presley’s Graceland, GameWorks, Premiere Magazine, Electronic Gaming Monthly, GMR, NASDAQ, Universal Music Group, Sony and Fox Entertainment Group.
“The promotion was integrated and didn’t just reach people through advertising and promotions — p.r. was a big component,” says Jen Caukin, p.r. for eBay. “Imagine What You’ll Win was featured on the NASDAQ Jumbotron — at the same time street teams were distributing cards. This brought the promotion to life in front of crowds and made them consider eBay Entertainment as the ultimate destination.”
As a result of the offline efforts, there were 7.2 million page views to the main promotion page from Sept. 25 to Dec. 31, 2003. The site logged in 807,121 total game plays (53% of total gameplays came from offline partners); 477, 853 unique game players (based on e-mail address); and a 100% increase in page views to the eBay Entertainment categories pages (7.5 million page views). The p.r. radio campaign, in which DJs asked daily eBay Entertainment trivia questions and drove people to eBay to play the game, generated 4.3 million gross impressions.
“Brand partners are terrific — they essentially are able to extend our message to their respective venues and we are able to provide them something in return — our 95 million users,” says Haddon. “We are working with partners for this summer and for the holiday season. It’s all about finding the right partners.”
