Stamp Out the Big South Conference
Elon University
Trip Durham, assistant athletics
director

Who: Any rewards card holder.

When: All season long.

What sport: Basketball.

How: During the last home football game, business-card-size reward cards were distributed to encourage basketball home attendance. Each card was printed double-sided. The front side had the school's athletics logo, the corporate partner's logo and the promotion's title. The back side had the logos of all seven competitors in the conference. It also contained the instruction of bringing the card to an Elon game, getting a competitor's logo stamped and redeeming the completed stamped card at the partner's location for a premium.

Results: Preseason basketball interest was increased during football season, attendance at home basketball games was increased and the partner was provided with a "positive association" inventory.

U.S. Army Free Travel Giveaway
Robert Morris University
Marty Galosi, assistant athletics director for marketing and sales

Who: Robert Morris students were the primary audience.

What: At each of five consecutive men's basketball games in 2003, one of the Pittsburgh-area Army recruiting stations positioned a table at the student entrance of the arena. Students could complete an Army contact card on all five occasions, thus enhancing their chances of winning a $1,000 gift certificate from Worldtek Travel. However, they had to attend the game to complete the card.

At the first four games in the series, two of the students who filled out cards during the pregame were chosen to come on the court at halftime to take part in a unique contest (that is, the first one to make a shot while wearing a gas mask). The winner subsequently had $50 added to his or her Freedom Card, which Robert Morris students are issued as a university multipurpose card to pay for on-campus meals, laundry, snacks, etc.

The Army was charged on a per-game basis for the right to set up the table at the games and solicit names. That charge helped cover the costs of the travel certificate, Freedom Card additions and printing. There was even some profit left over after that.

When: The promotion is held during the pregame and halftime over five consecutive games. At the fifth, all the contact cards that were completed during that time are placed in a bin, and the winner of the travel certificate is selected at halftime.

How: An initial meeting with the local Army recruiting station was first. Securing the university rights to adding the money to the student's Freedom Card and securing the travel certificate was next. Posters were hung around campus over Christmas break since the promotion ran during January and February home games. Post cards were placed in student mail boxes at the same time, and an e-mail was sent to students.

Greek Day
Northwestern University
Tracie Hitz, assistant director of marketing

Next to student-athletes, members of Greek organizations are the most competitive students on campus. Those students also are dedicated to raising money for different charities and organizations around the Chicago area. With that in mind, Northwestern created Greek Day at a Saturday men's basketball game during the Big Ten Conference season. Instead of making it just a social event for fraternities and sororities, Northwestern turned it into a competition, as well as an opportunity to raise money for their favorite charity.

Each fraternity and sorority had three weeks to sell basketball tickets to its members for the game. The student price for tickets is $5, but for this competition, the tickets were sold for $6, with the extra dollar going to the pot for the winning fraternity or sorority to donate to its charity. If members already were season-ticket holders, they needed to donate $1 to the pot to be counted for this competition.

Selling tickets was only half the deal. On the day of the game, the members were required to check in before they took their seats in the arena. Since the fraternities and sororities participating were of equal size, the group that brought the most members would win the competition. (If smaller fraternities or sororities took part in the competition, the winner would have been determined based on the percentage of members in attendance.) The members of the winning fraternity were brought on to the court at halftime as the announcement was made.