For the second year in a row, LG Electronics MobileComm USA is on the hunt for the fastest thumbs in the country.
And this time around, the mobile handset provider offered a number of new ways to get the word out and the SMS messages in for its “National Texting Championship” promotion—including live qualifiers during an MTV broadcast program.
LG is looking for someone who can enter and send a text message on an LG phone with maximum accuracy and speed in its latest contest, subtitled “Down and Dirty on the QWERTY.” Entrants must work their way up through a series of qualifying rounds to be part of the final round, which will take place live in front of an audience at New York’s Roseland Ballroom on July 9. The winner of the championship round will take home a $50,000 grand prize, double the purse of last year’s contest.
The promotion is intended to highlight LG MobileComm’s line of full-keyboard handsets. People must be over 13 and own and play with an activated version of the LG V, enV, enV2 or Voyager. Competitors in the last few rounds of the game will text using LG enV2 handsets provided by the manufacturer.
LG and the Fathom Communications, the agency managing the promotion, set up a number of ways for consumers to get engaged with the contest. Live regional qualifying rounds took place June 10 to 14 in Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta and Miami.
Alternatively, would-be entrants were instructed to come to the contest Web site, http://www.LGtexter.com, on June 18 and receive a text message and an address to send it to. Four winners from that round are slated to be among the finalists in New York.
During an SMS Wild Card round played June 19 through yesterday, registrants at the Web site received four separate text messages containing special phrases. They were instructed to reply and re-type those phrases as fast as possible. The fastest reply for each phrase also won a seat at the July finals.
Viewers of the June 24 reunion episode of the MTV program “A Shot at Love 2” also got a chance to enter. In a two-minute “microevent” during the broadcast in the Eastern time zone, and another three hours later in the Pacific zone, audiences were asked to transcribe and send a phrase to a given address as quickly as possible. Winners of the East and West Coast versions of that round will also compete in the New York finale.
“Texting has permeated our society, so LG is honoring those who have excelled at this new form of communication,” LG MobileComm Vice President of Product Strategy and Marketing Ehtisham Rabbani said in a statement. “We love seeing our customers have fun with our products and enjoy some friendly competition along the way.”
Fathom Communications co-founder Tres McCullough pointed out that LG and the agency agreed to broaden this sequel contest beyond the live events that made up the 2007 campaign by building in Web-based, mobile marketing and broadcast components.
“Our goal is to open the competition so more people can participate in more ways,” he said in a statement.
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