Students Keep Chevys at Hand in Contest
To create buzz among college students for its new Aveo, Chevy is kicking off a competition at universities where students have to stay in continuous contact with the car and persuade their peers to vote for them so they can win the car.
Two-student teams from eight universities across the U.S. have been selected to participate in the Livin’ Large challenge from Oct. 23-27. During the five days, the teams will compete to rack up the most online votes through the creativity, ingenuity and sheer entertainment value they exhibit during the week to persuade people to go online to vote for them.
The contestants will be able to leave the car only to attend class and for periodic breaks. The remainder of the time they must be in the car or be touching it. Web cams mounted both inside and outside the car will stream video footage to AveoLivinLarge.com so Web surfers can see what the contestants are doing and vote for their favorite team. Contestants are expected to help direct traffic to the Web site by staging creative and entertaining activities from the Aveo and via their personal Facebook.com and MySpace.com Web pages. They will receive branded T-shirts, backpacks, coolers and other items for winning various challenges.
“This is a way for us to reach out to buyers in the 18-to-25 age range,” said Wendy Clark, Aveo spokesperson. Students will create buzz if they do things like “get their professors to hold classes by the Aveo or get football teams to come by. It’s all good, clean fun,” she added.
Students hail from Boston University, University of Florida, Howard University, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, University of Southern California, Syracuse University and Texas Christian University.
Contestants may need to rely on friends, classmates or even strangers to bring them pizza, a bottle of water or a sweater as they “live large” in the Aveo.
At the end of five days, votes will be tallied, and the students on the team with the most votes will each win a brand new 2007 Chevy Aveo. The winning contestants’ university also will be awarded a car.
Chevy is working with Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) chapters to help tailor the program to each university and to execute the campaign.
Weber Shandwick, Boston, handles.
