| EVENT REPORT 08.27.09 3:41 PM |
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DirecTV and ESPN Court Consumers With U.S. Open Promo
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 | John McEnroe appeared at DirecTV and ESPN's stunt.
Photo: Jessica Torossian for BizBash |
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As the fourth and final competition of the Grand Slam tournament, the U.S. Open gets a lot of play, with top players such as Roger Federer and Dinara Safina in town to promote sponsors like Nike and Heineken. Yesterday, to publicize their televised coverage of the forthcoming tennis matches, DirecTV and ESPN trotted out former champions John McEnroe, Serena and Venus Williams, and James Blake for exhibition games in Bryant Park. For the daylong publicity stunt, which also included three hours for the public to hit balls with U.S.T.A. pros, the organizers built two regulation-size courts behind the New York Public Library.
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DirecTV, ESPN, U.S. Open |
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| EVENT INTELLIGENCE 06.02.09 9:00 AM |
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Guerrilla Marketing Guide: Where to Stage Stunts in Six Cities
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 | Tennis pros Venus Williams and Andy Murray stopping traffic in Miami
Photo: Getty Images |
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Chicago
Where to Go: One of the Windy City’s most iconic locales, the Daley Center, allows marketers to reach consumers—including the lunching masses—under the watchful eye of a 50-foot untitled Picasso sculpture. A few blocks northeast, and just outside the Loop, is Pioneer Court. The petite, extremely busy plaza sits where the Chicago River meets Michigan Avenue and sees most of the 40 million tourists who visit Chicago annually.
What It Takes: The Daley Center’s plaza is owned by MB Real Estate (312.603.7981), which prices permits individually. Pioneer Court is controlled by the Equitable Life Insurance Company and the Chicago Tribune Company, but any event using the streets around it would require permits from the City of Chicago (Office of Special Events, 312.744.0626). Months of red tape and a 28-page application packet might persuade you to go guerrilla instead.
Recent Stunt: When More put future first lady Michelle Obama on its October 2008 cover, the magazine deployed 100 readers to the streets around Pioneer Court to pose with issues—and it didn’t spend a penny on permits.
Who Can Help: Based in Chicago, Legacy Marketing Partners has earned a lot of attention from experiential campaigns like the Stoli Hotel and the mobile Burger King/NFL Challenge.
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Guerrilla Marketing, More Magazine, Sony, DirecTV, Budweiser, Ikea, Ikea, Sony Ericsson |
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| EVENT REPORT 04.29.09 5:01 PM |
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New Tribeca Film Festival Sponsor DirecTV Debuts With 2009 Media Lounge
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 | DirecTV's makeshift marquee
Photo: Jessica Torossian for BizBash |
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With Target and its filmmaker lounge no longer in the picture at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, freshman sponsor DirecTV picked up the slack by building a press center and media lounge in a former futon store just south of Union Square on University Place.
Over the course of the festival's 12-day run, DirecTV has teamed up with a handful of other sponsors—Snapple, Heineken, Zone Perfect, and L'Oreal—for a media headquarters called the DirecTV Tribeca Press Center. The hub, produced by DirecTV director of national media events Brad Setting and New York-based Kuki Design, hosts interviews, photo-ops, roundtable discussions, and probably a few naps through the festival's close on Sunday.
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Tribeca Enterprises, Tribeca Film Festival, DirecTV |
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| Q & A 02.12.09 1:29 PM |
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Daytona 500 Organizers Slash Ticket Prices, Anticipate Fewer Spectators
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 | Daytona International Speedway's Robin Braig
Photo: Courtesy of Daytona International Speedway |
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The Daytona 500 is set for this Sunday at Florida's Daytona International Speedway. Considered the most important event on the Nascar calendar, the annual 500-mile race features entertainment and plenty of events surrounding the festivities. Overseeing the 500 and its official events is Robin Braig, president of the Daytona International Speedway. We chatted with him about marketing the event in the current economy, strategic brand partnerships, preparing for 250,000 attendees, and trying to make things a little different each year.
What’s new this year?
Our lower ticket prices. We feel the economy as much as anybody else, and we dropped our ticket pricing, unlike the NBA or NFL. On our front stretch, we have new seats with arm rests and chair backs. That doesn’t sound like it should be new, but the track is 50 years old, and we’re just now getting around to getting everything [you'd expect to see] in a state-of-the-art-type facility.
Have you seen a change in ticket sales due to the discount? Has the economy affected the race in other ways?
The phones are ringing much more since we’ve announced the $55 ticket. Like any American business, we’ve attempted to cut expenses more than we have in the past. We anticipate fewer people attending, so we’ll need fewer people to manage the event. On the other hand, we’ve taken this as an opportunity to have people attend that haven’t been able to afford it in the past. The pricing is better; we have free parking; the hotels in the area are charging less; we dropped some of our food and beverage prices; and we let you bring your own food into the facility. That combination is going to be positive for our race fans.
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Nascar, DirecTV, Daytona 500, Daytona International Speedway |
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| EVENT REPORT 02.03.09 4:05 PM |
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More Super Bowl Shots: Events From NBC, NFL, Pepsi, and DirecTV
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 | Blake Lively at DirecTV's Celebrity Beach Bowl in St. Petersburg on Saturday
Photo: Getty Images |
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Following yesterday's coverage of some of the biggest parties surrounding the Super Bowl, here's a look at some more events, from big game broadcast network NBC, DirecTV, Pepsi, and the NFL.
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Super Bowl, NBC, N.F.L., DirecTV |
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| TREND SPOTTED 02.02.08 12:24 PM |
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The Hip-Hop Won't Stop: Super Bowl Parties Present 50 Cent, Snoop, and Luda
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 | 50 Cent performed at the 944 Super Village.
Photo: Courtesy of 944 Magazine |
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FROM SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. While the NFL plans to offer the masses a dose of Tom Petty at the big game tomorrow, corporate planners are heading in the opposite direction this weekend, giving the packed Arizona parties a whole lot of rap. The 944 Super Village at SouthBridge kicked off the concert-heavy festivities on Thursday night with a 50 Cent performance. The artist rapped on a gigantic stage in an (unheated) tent, with Paris Hilton gyrating alongside him. Pontiac sponsored the evening—and, not surprisingly, its 2008 G8 car (which 50 codesigned) on stage was impossible to miss.
In a more exclusive turn, Jenny McCarthy and Holly Robinson Peete hosted the "Best Damn Super Bowl Party Period" on Thursday (a play on Peete's' husband's Best Damn Sports Show Period on Fox Sports), with Ludacris entertaining a crowd of 300 at the private Rockridge estate in Phoenix. Next up for the HollyRod Foundation: an invitation-only Chris Rock performance tonight. Diddy also took the stage on Thursday, at Scottsdale nightclub Axis/Radius for Anheuser-Busch's Bud Bowl.
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Super Bowl, 944 Magazine, Pontiac, Playboy, Penthouse, Anheuser-Busch, Maxim, ESPN the Magazine, Sports Illustrated, DirecTV |
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| EVENT REPORT 02.01.08 3:17 PM |
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DirecTV Runs a Well-Oiled Super Bowl Machine
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 | DirecTV's sand playing field
Photo: Stellaphotography/Elevation Photos |
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FROM SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. This reporter may be a jaded New Yorker, but the event coverage norms of the East Coast—crabby PR people, long lines, and broken promises among them—are nowhere to be found in sunny Arizona. And DirecTV's Celebrity Beach Bowl yesterday was no exception. The media check-in line was nonexistent (the PR contact answered her cell phone when we got lost!), the greenroom was crowded but efficient (we ate a sandwich next to Brody Jenner!), and the seating was ample for V.I.P.s and paying ticket holders alike (with nary a pushy line-cutter in sight!). All said, DirecTV's Beach Bowl ran like a well-oiled machine.
The event strategy was simple: to pair retired and current pro football players with eye candy like Girls Next Door star Kendra Wilkinson and Gossip Girl star (and current It girl) Blake Lively. "We basically said, 'Let’s bring a bunch of NFLers together and put on a flag football game.' Celebrities, football legends, and models? Who won’t want to come watch that?" said DirecTV senior vice president of advertising and PR Jon Gieselman. "And why not throw in a band at the end? It’s one of those things that clicks on all cylinders from a marketing standpoint. It’s just a great value-added event for people that are in the Super Bowl city, for them to come and enjoy and participate."
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Super Bowl, DirecTV, Josh Kelley |
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| NEWS 01.30.08 4:11 PM |
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Super Bowl XLII: Who's Going Where
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FROM SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. As New York and New England football fans head west, so are the corporate types planning Super Bowl-inspired events. Trading last year's Miami beach locale for a sprawling desert landscape, many planners are calling Arizona a breath of fresh air, with most everyone agreeing that anything is better than Detroit. Here's a rundown of some of the week's biggest to-dos.
Audi is kicking off the week with an invitation-only hole-in-one charity tournament today, with former NFL players and celebrities lining up to win an Audi R8. The auto brand has taken over a nine-acre estate in Arizona's luxe Paradise Valley neighborhood, which will be home to a series of events, including a Kate Hudson-hosted dinner and a Marquis Jet daytime party. Also on-site at the estate is a satellite hub for Los Angeles club Hyde, which will open at 11 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. Relevent's Tony Berger is producing.
Tomorrow, DirecTV stages its second annual Celebrity Beach Bowl, an event that pairs current and former NFLers with celebrities and models in a semi-competitive, semi-comical flag football game. Matt Leinart, Doug Flutie, Pamela Anderson, and David Spade are among the players, with Fall Out Boy performing afterward. The sand-filled event is taking over a corner of the new SouthBridge Waterfront area, which is also home to the bevy of 944 Media goings-on (including nighttime concerts by 50 Cent, Velvet Revolver, and Wyclef Jean, and a less-than-shocking appearance by Paris Hilton).
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Super Bowl, DirecTV, Maxim, Audi, ESPN the Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Playboy, Penthouse, Victoria's Secret |
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