Neither rain nor wind nor — well, a lot of rain — were able to keep healthy crowds away from a live event offered in New York’s Times Square by Verizon Wireless and agency Momentum last month. And why should they have? These people were big Storm fans.
That is, they were stoked to win a new BlackBerry Storm smartphone, Research in Motion’s hotly awaited play for the consumer smartphone market and a possible alternative to both Apple’s iPhone 3G and the T-Mobile G2. It operates on Verizon’s Wireless’ high-speed 3G network, and Verizon was giving New York CrackBerry addicts a chance to win one at the First Touch Storm Grab booth set up on Broadway between 46th and 47th Streets.
Would-be players waited in the rain to get a chance to step into the BlackBerry “Storm Globe” and spend a minute trying to grab as many black BlackBerry Storm tickets as they could from among a blizzard of other flying paper. Seven black tickets won a Storm, to be shipped a few weeks after the model’s Nov. 21 drop date in Verizon stores. Grabbing fewer than seven black tickets won a number of other prizes, including a $100 Verizon gift card or a Bluetooth headset.
The NYC Storm Grab was just part of the promotion surrounding the arrival of the latest BlackBerry phone model, and in fact was not even the first Storm Grab. Agency Momentum had activated events earlier that month in San Francisco and in Chicago. No word at press time on how many Storms the NYC event gave away, but the San Francisco Grab reportedly handed out vouchers for 100 handsets.
As for the rain, “Hey, it’s worth a shot!” posted joepocky on the forum the day of the NY event. “If you’re wet, all the better because the tickets will stick to you!!”
For more articles on experiential marketing, go to http://promomagazine.com/eventmarketing/
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