Ty Pennington TXT Sweeps Nets 71 Million Entries

A recent text-to-win sweepstakes by Alltel featuring Trading Spaces star Ty Pennington and a $1 million grand prize received more than 71 million entries from over 600,000 Alltel existing and new subscribers.

The sweepstakes, which ran from April 15 to July 8, was used as a text promotion because Alltel wanted to generate new customers and stimulate the use of wireless data services, Alltel spokesman David Avery said.

"This was a multi-facetted promotion, using newspaper, online and direct mail to reach consumers, and that's part of the reason it exceeded our expectations," Avery said. "The other reason, I'm sure, is that it was the first time we used Pennington in a promotion."

Pennington signed on as an Alltel pitchman in April and was immediately used as the centerpiece. The grand prize of $1 million, to be used by the winner to build a dream home, went to a woman from South Carolina last week.

Alltel consumers entered the sweeps by sending a text message to 123456. Once entered, consumers received another chance to win by sending a text, picture, video or instant message.

At the time of the sweepstakes, which ran in conjunction with Kyocera Wireless Corp., Alltel had about 8.6 million wireless customers, Avery said.

Alltel's marketing team is working on another text-to-win sweepstakes, though details and themes have not been determined, Avery said. Alltel also partnered with Motorola last September for a similar sweepstakes, which sent the winner to Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville, FL.

"We've been pleased with the results of our text-to-win sweepstakes', so we'll continue to use them to promote wireless data usage," Avery said.

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