Overstock.com launched a sweepstakes August 16 with the Boston Red Sox baseball club to reach avid baseball fans in the New England market who may not be Overstock customers.
The “Ultimate Red Sox Experience” sweepstakes, created internally, will give three winners all-expense-paid trips for two to see the Red Sox battle the rival New York Yankees at Boston’s Fenway Park October 2. A grand prize winner will have the opportunity to post balls, strikes and runs on the stadium’s iconic “Green Monster” scoreboard for an inning.
The sweepstakes will run through September 10.
Stormy Simon, SVP of marketing and customer care at Overstock.com, said the e-commerce company and the Red Sox have had a five-year relationship as co-presenting sponsors of the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge. The cycling event supports cancer research and treatment at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
The company will also ask consumers if they want to opt in to future Red Sox and Overstock.com promotional e-mails and alerts, said Simon.
“Our main goal is always to translate [these efforts] into sales, but we want to acquire new customers, retain and reward our existing base, and make an imprint in the New England area,” said Simon.
Overstock.com is also producing a series of webisodes chronicling a “job swap” between Simon and Rob Crawford, known to baseball fans as the “vice president of Red Sox Nation.” A new webisode will debut every Monday until the end of the sweepstakes on Overstock.com and RedSox.com.
Simon added that the company will measure the number of sweepstakes registrants and the number of consumers who opt in for e-mail alerts. The company will also gauge the viral progress of the webisodes.
