Deal Or No Deal...What's The Deal?

NBC had a chance to get creative with a mobile marketing campaign with this show and they just blew it.

NBC's game show Deal Or No Deal is coming back after a sucessful ratings run a few months back. I hoped they would have created a better mobile campaign than the original one.

Here's how Lucky Case works:

Use your cell phone and send a text message to 59595 with your case number.

For example, if you think case number 4 is the Lucky Case, send a text message to 59595 with the number 4. We will randomly choose the winner from those who correctly pick the Lucky Case. The game ends when the Lucky Case is opened and the winner will be announced live later in the show.

Each text costs .99 and you can only enter 10 times per show. Who says there’s no money in a text message campaign. I would love to know how many texts are sent each night.

There is SO MUCH more that could be done with this brainless show. Don't get me wrong, I find myself yelling at the screen when I watch it, but it has all the potential for a GREAT mobile marketing campaign.

The show is loaded with commercials so let’s make advertisers part of the show.


Here’s a couple ideas I have for this.

1. At the beginning of each contest, have a viewer text his guess for the case that has the $1m in it to win a case of Coke , Pepsi or whoever sponsors the show. Expedia could give away two first class tickets for the winner. There will be NO CHARGE for this entry, and only one allowed per phone.

There could be a different sponsor for each dollar amount. To win a free cruise, text in the case number that has $75k in it. For a free Ipod text the case number with $300k. There are 26 different cases, 26 different sponsors and all demographics could be included.

Direct viewers to the website www.nbc.com/dond to see what sponsor is tied to what dollar amount.

2. Let viewers play the role of “The Banker”. After X number of cases are opened, let viewers text in the dollar amount that should be offered to the contestant. Toss out the lowest 5 and highest 5 entries, and average the dollar amounts to get a figure.

You can still keep the $10k Lucky Case contest, but with a little creativity, this could be the launching pad for mobile marketing and interactive TV. If done properly, this show could be commercial free.

This would be the most talked about text message campaign and go a long way in educating the masses on how to use SMS (text message).

That would be A Deal