To mark the pending first anniversary of its Shop Your Way buyer rewards programs in its Sears and Kmart retail brands, Sears Holding Corp. has launched a contest that will give one lucky loyalty member up to a billion points in their account, just in time for Christmas shopping this fall.
The only catch: They have to give half of the points to charity.
That’s not a catch but an incentive, according to a survey Sears and Kmart commissioned earlier this month from Kelton Research. According to those findings, 81% of Americans say that if they came into a large sum of money, they’d most likely donate a portion of that award to a charity, non-profit or other aid organization.
The “What Would You Do with One Billion Points?” contest allows the 17 million Shop Your Way members to do just that. The contest winner will have the choice of giving half those points to one or two of SHC’s three long-time charity partners (low-income housing rehabber Rebuilding Together, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, or the March of Dimes), or splitting the donation between one of Sears’ partners and a charity of their choice that meets basic contest qualifications.
Sears and Kmart Shop Your Way members can enter themselves into the competition by submitting a 45-second video at a dedicated microsite explaining just what they would do if they won a billion loyalty points. In a twist to encourage submissions, the prize pool started at 100,000 points on July6 14. Every video entered adds another 10,000 loyalty points to the prize total until it reaches that 1-billion-point limit. A counter at the site keeps track of the number of points in the kitty—at press time, 100,440,000.
Visitors to the site can view contestants’ submissions and vote for their favorites as often as they like. They must join the Shop your Way program to vote, and are informed of that by a pop-up registration that also asks for their e-mail address and offers a check-off box to receive other offers from SHC brands.
The top 20 votegetters by October 5 will move up to a final round of voting on the site, with the winner chosen after voting closes on November 3. Agency ePrize is administering the contest for SHC.
“This contest enables members to tell America what they would do with the one-billion-point award, and America will vote on the winner,” says Eric Messerschmidt, divisional vice president of marketing loyalty programs for Sears Holdings Corp. “half those points will be donated, and the other half can then be redeemed for just about everything Sears Holdings Corp. sells—whether it’s apparel from Lands End, a refrigerator from Sears, or food and consumables from Kmart. There’s something in there for everybody.”
The Kelton survey done for Sears prior to the contest launch found 83% of Americans saying that they had contributed money to a charity within the last two years. But of that group, 41% said they gave less money in that period than they had in previous years.
Sixty-nine percent of respondents told Kelton pollsters they’ve hesitated to give money because they couldn’t afford it. And 21% said they’ve cut back on charitable giving to save money for their own future needs.
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