EA Sports and Sony have partnered with Great Clips to produce a very unique sweepstakes entitled the Ultimate Gaming Makeover where MMA fans and patrons of the hair salon franchise can enter to win a 52″ Sony Bravia, Sony PS3, EA MMA the video game, and more.
Payout Perspective:
There’s a certain lack of image fit between MMA and the art of hair styling that makes these companies unlikely partners, but image fit isn’t always a necessary component of a successful partnership. Sometimes all that’s needed is a shared target market. In the case of EA Sports, Sony, and Great Clips, that market is males aged 18-49.
Great Clips isn’t a fancy salon that pushes techno music, cutting edge hair styles and charges customers $50+ per visit. It’s a simple meat and potatoes type of place that charges $15 for a quick hair cut designed for the young person or working professional that doesn’t really care or doesn’t really have time to care about their hair. That fits in pretty well with the MMA demo.
The salon I visited had so many advertisements posted that it would have been near impossible to miss, especially for any gamer that has an image of the EA Sports logo seared into their memory. If that holds throughout the rest of the Great Clips locations in North America (2800 in total), it’ll prove to be pretty valuable exposure for EA MMA. The fact that EA and Great Clips allow an individual to enter the contest via text message is also a smart move; give people something to do while they’re at the salon for 15 minutes and don’t let them forget by the time they get home.
Moreover, the structure of the contest leads me to believe the exchange was probably of an in-kind nature. Sony contributed the prizes, EA contributed the game and likely some advertising, and Great Clips benefits from an association with both. The cost:benefit ratio is probably pretty solid.
Kudos to the teams at EA and Sony for putting this together.
Note: I do want to mention the interesting word play in the advertisements. I doubt it’s any coincidence that the name of a contest featuring an MMA product is called the “Ultimate…” something. It’s a subtle jab at the UFC, but legal nonetheless.
Humm…on the “note”. Omg your so right!!