PCH campaign highlights instant prize sweeps

In a departure from its traditional approach, Publisher's Clearing House has launched a multimillion dollar, integrated campaign for its annual January sweepstakes. The contest this year features "Instaprize," which offers a grand prize of $10 million to consumers, who find out whether they have won within 48 hours. Creative was handled in-house, with KSL Media assisting with television buying, and 360i handling online media buys.

The campaign runs from December 30 to January 12, includes a $5 million television budget, and online efforts, in addition to its direct mail and newspaper advertising.

“The television-supported campaign gives a lift to the mail and newspaper ads,” said Debbie Holland, EVP at Publishers Clearing House. “Online, we're running banner ads for acquisition efforts, and paid search is a big part of the campaign as well.”

The sweeps push targets Publishers Clearing House's in-house database, which consists of tens of millions of postal names and millions of e-mail names. The online target is consumers 45 and older interested in sweepstakes.

One challenge, said Todd Sloane, SVP, creative at Publishers Clearing House, was leveraging both online and offline channels in a single, 30-second TV spot.It also wanted to get the word out about the instant-gratification element of the promotion.

"There is a consumer demand for more instant prizes,” Sloan said. “In addition to InstaPrize, PCH Instant Win offers a chance to win each time someone searches the Web. We're seeing that consumers are yearning more for instant prizes in addition to the big sweepstakes. This year we wanted to marry what we're seeing online with instant sweepstakes like state lotteries with our traditional $10 million prize, so our InstaPrize is a pretty big departure for us."