Bud Light hosted the World’s Largest Pool Party at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas from March 17 through March 21, 2010. Imagine Spring Break, St. Patrick’s Day and March Madness all rolled into one continuous 5-day party! Bud Light looked to Tetherball to create an innovative mobile solution to communicate with pool party participants and reward brand enthusiasts.

THE CHALLENGE

• Create an interactive, one-to-one relationship with the hard to reach, on-the-go pool party attendees

• Promote brand awareness using fun and innovative technology

• Provide real-time rewards acknowledging participant engagement along with verifiable validation techniques

• Effectively and efficiently measure individual participant engagement and activity throughout the event

THE SOLUTION

Tetherball engineered an innovative solution integrating its proprietary RFID tags, Smart Posters and Mobiquitous™ platform to engage participants in scheduled and unscheduled activities, as well as track individual member engagement throughout the event. Event participants were encouraged to join the event’s mobile program during event registration to enrich their pool party experience.

Participants who joined the event’s SMS-text enabled mobile program by activating their unique RFID tag were instantly eligible to get special offers and a shot to win prizes at the pool party.

On Day 1, participants earned points for each bar visited along the St. Patrick’s Day Pub Crawl by tapping their unique RFID tags on the Smart Posters deployed at each bar. At the end of the night, the participants of the Pub Crawl were placed into a drawing to determine who earned the grand prize of a poolside cabana at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino and the other valuable prizes.

On subsequent days, the mobile program was used to promote engagement and interaction with special “triggered responses” on each Smart Poster such as contests, as well as general, “pushed” notifications of daily activities, event locations, prizewinners, and exclusive Bud Light offers.

THE RESULTS

Throughout the 5-day event, the program saw great participation.

• Over 57% of the pool party attendees participated in the mobile program and engaged with the brand.

• More than 44% of the mobile program participants engaged in the St. Patrick’s Day Pub-Crawl.

• In excess of 47% of the mobile program participants entered in the Meet the Band Contest, of which, the winners responded in less than 29 seconds!

• Over 7,000 brand engagement messages were delivered to participants during the event.