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Starbucks is halfway through its first major foray into mobile marketing, encouraging people to use their camera phones as part of a scavenger hunt.
Participants in the promotion - the “Starbucks Summer Pursuit” quiz and sweepstakes - receive SMS questions and reply via text or by sending a picture of the answer, writes ClickZ (via MarketingVOX). Questions and clues relate to summer or the brand; for example, “Two p’s, two c’s and no h. I’m hard to spell, but easy to drink”: (answer, “Frappuccino”). To join the promotion, players text-message “SUMMER” to 66268.
Starbucks is supporting the promotion with keyword buys, outdoor advertising, invitations distributed at stores and events, and an email blast to some two million Starbucks fans. Five players will be chosen at random for a scavenger hunt in New York City; the winner will receive a trip for two to Costa Rica.
All sectors of the media business will suffer from the weakened economy in 2008 and 2009, with a slump in local advertising particularly hurting newspapers and local TV, according to a new projection from Goldman Sachs.
Broadcast nets will experience…
The New York Times is shuttering its International Herald Tribune site; NYTimes.com will soon host the international news normally reserved for its sister website.
The move is not about cost savings, but rather about growth, NYTimes.com general manager Vivian Schiller…
Unilever’s Vaseline set forth on an unusual research project in a small town in Alaska. Setting up a storefront, the company began giving away free bottles of lotion and asking recipients to name the person who had recommended they come…
Meet the Press, the show hosted by Tim Russert for 17 years before his death last June, is beginning to slip in ratings.
Last month, CBS’s Face the Nation pulled ahead of Meet the Press for the first time in two…
Bloggers collectively create nearly one million blog posts each day, and half of bloggers believe blogs will be a primary source of news and entertainment in the next five years, according to Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere Report, MarketingCharts writes.…
Wal-Mart and Costco reported same-store gains in September, with sales rising 2.4% and 9% respectively. Sales at Target stores open at least a year fell 3%, writes Retailer Daily.
Below, fiscal results from the discount retail giants:
Sales of food and…
