Lifetime Leads up to Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is family time, will you be watching TV? Lifetime TV wants to make sure viewers tune in and created a mobile contest and sweepstakes to make sure that happens. Lifetime brought in broadline closeout retailer Big Lots as the featured sponsor in the integrated campaign, with the intent to drive purchase intent on the busy shopping day.

From Sunday November 18 through Thanksgiving Day, on-air promotional spots will run on Lifetime Television pointing viewers to a mobile and online promotion run by mobile entertainment community Limbo. Limbo then supports the campaign with its Limbo Unique game across multiple platforms including SMS, WAP, Internet, and e-mail. Users can enter the contest on Limbo’s Web site, or by texting “biglots” to a short code (define), in which they select a number. At the end of the contest’s run, the participant with the lowest unique number wins. The grand prize winner will receive $5,000, and five other entrants will win $500 gift cards from Big Lots.

The promotion serves two purposes. “Lifetime is encouraging viewers to tune in during the holiday period,” said Stacy Geagan Wagner, Limbo’s VP of public relations. “Big Lots is trying to be top-of-mind in that key week leading up to Black Friday.”

Limbo and Lifetime worked previously on promotions using the Limbo Unique game. “When Lifetime shows [a spot for Limbo Unique], we tend to get a lot of new members,” said Geagan Wagner.

Through post-campaign research conducted by a third party, Limbo reports a 7 percent conversion to purchase for advertisers. SMS player averages 50 branded interactions, and averages 15 minutes per Web gameplay session.