Tourism Vancouver and Vancouver Coast & Mountains Tourism Region have been inspired by one of America’s biggest marketing events in giving away a prize package that includes tickets to Sunday’s Grey Cup game for fans willing to do some legwork.
The contest is running in both Vancouver and Winnipeg. It’s part of a social media campaign called the Grey Cup Chase devised by Vancouver-based Think! Social Media. The concept is a reworking of an idea first used for the Super Bowl in Dallas earlier this year.
Fans must track down one of two “mystery men” wandering the streets of Winnipeg and Vancouver and give them a secret phrase that can only be found by clicking “like” on Tourism Vancouver’s Facebook page. Clues to their whereabouts are fed through a Twitter account at #GreyCupChase and via selected bloggers until somebody wins.
“An event like the Grey Cup is like a small version of the Olympics,” said Rodney Payne, co-founder and executive director at Think! “You’ve got a lot of passionate fans who are willing to do quite a lot for some tickets. We want to position the destination as a great place to come and travel to afterwards.”
It’s a bit of an experiment, said Candace Gibson, manager of consumer marketing for Tourism Vancouver. “We know that people are following events like the Grey Cup online and through social media more and more all the time, so this is just another way to reach a very interested audience.”
Gibson said the target group is 25-45 with a 60/40 male split. The objective is to create buzz through new Facebook fans, “likes,” adding Twitter followers and garnering a bit of traditional media attention.
