Mobile fan engagement at NJ Devils game

Posted on 26. Sep, 2009 by Mike Olaski in Individuals, Promotions, Service Providers, The Connection, The Fans Perspective, The Sports Perspective

Between periods at the New Jersey Devils vs Philadelphia Flyers game, we came across a promotion run by Verizon Wireless called “Battle Text”. The participants were handed verizon cell phones and were told to battle head to head on timed trivia questions about the Devils.

Great idea, but again, I couldn’t help but wonder why they don’t employ this concept on the Big Screen during intermissions. There was literally no fan interaction during these intermissions within the arena (aside from the organ playing tradtional hockey songs).

Imagine if they picked 5 random people in the crowd, gave them each a Verizon cell phone and had them compete for their section to win a prize. They could encourage all the other fans to help with the answers because it would all come down to who is the fastest at texting the answer. To take this idea another step further, they could also supply all the fans in the winning section with an offer to visit a unique URL on their website to take advantage of a special offer for new subscibers.

Again, it is exhibition season in the NHL still, so it’s likely that we are not seeing the Devils newest and best Marketing efforts. But, if they are not thinking about tying together mobile contests with the live game experience (Big Screen), they should be.

Aside from all the signage around the arena, Verizon is missing out on an opportunity to create an engaging campaign that would have fans thinkin about their brand and using their service during the game and in turn, driving traffic to the online marketing efforts.