It feels like a lot of play and little work at Waterfall as we’ve been generating several Anheuser-Busch sweepstakes that are anything but dull over the past few weeks. With a fantastic partner and great creative, implementing campaigns has never been so interesting: A-B has been doing everything from bringing fans closer to the Stanley Cup to getting people to the red-carpet premiere of Adam Sandler’s upcoming comedy “Funny People.”

In all of the eight summer sweepstakes users spot the call-to-action at supermarkets, bars, convenience stores or online and are urged to text the specific keywords to the short code 23377 (BEERS).

All of the contests utilize age-gating and (sometimes) zip code verification to determine eligibility. The first initial text message that gets sent to consumers is the age gate, which asks consumers to reply back with their date of birth. Those who make the age cut pass through to the campaign content and those who don’t are directed on a separate path of messaging. Considering the content, age verification is a very important campaign component to get right.

Tens of thousands of people have been engaged in Anheuser-Busch’s summer sweepstakes thus far, with some of the contests still running. The campaigns utilize many different approaches including scheduled IVR (Interactive Voice Recognition) blasts and sweepstakes running in both English and Spanish.

Prizes for the sweepstakes included:

• Tickets and travel to the Hollywood red carpet premiere of Adam Sandler’s upcoming movie “Funny People”
• Tickets to summers best concerts including Nas, The Roots, Big Boi and Common
• Five Harley-Davidson Motorcycles
• Tickets to the UFC 100 including travel to Las Vegas
• Four passes to the NHL Poker Challenge in Las Vegas
• An opportunity to see the Stanley Cup and meet NHL players and celebrities
• Island cruise and a private island concert with the Dave Matthews Band

Two of the eight campaigns are still running. For a chance to win:

• An island cruise and private Dave Matthews Band concert, text CRUISE to 23377 (BEERS)
• A meeting with some of your favorite soccer players or to win autographed jerseys, text FUTBOL to 23377 (BEERS)

I was joking about the little work around here (we’ve yet to hit any summer lull) but with a client like Anheuser-Busch and these great campaigns, we’ve managed to have a bit of fun along the way!

(Jacqueline is Client Services Account Manager Extraordinaire at Waterfall and loves her clients almost as much as their products.)