KYW: The Promotion Side of Things

A part of the promotions coordinator/interns job is to call the prize winners from our KYW database.  See, on the KYW website you can register to win monthly prizes.  The prizes are various, from things such as gift certificates to restaurants, spas, etc to tickets to concerts, plays, operas, and other family outing stuff.  When people register they go into a database and a program called “Sticky Fish” chooses a winner at random.  Well, they usually give away one big prize every now and then and during the course of my internship it was a one week cruise on Norwegian Cruise Lines.  And I got to be the one to call the winner and tell her!  Unfortunately, she wasn’t as enthused as I thought she would be.  In fact, she seemed very hesitant; like she may have thought it was a joke or something.  Anyway, usually when people do not claim their prizes the employees at KYW get to keep the leftovers.  I was secretly hoping this was the case for the cruise, however, it was not.  What actually happens is Sticky Fish chooses another, new winner.  If that person refuses, Sticky Fish will keep choosing until someone accepts it.  You think it would be a pretty easy acceptance, right?  A one week cruise on a gorgeous cruise line, just in time for summer.  All expenses paid- at least I thought so.  However, talking to my boss Nicole, she said that the winners are required to pay for the taxes which can go up to $2,000!  And with the economy being the way it is, some people don’t have the funds to just give up thousands of dollars and run off to vacation.

Usually, the prizes are pretty fun and I usually have to call the winners to remind them to send in their acceptance forms.  You’d be surprised how many people are hesitant and not willing to fill out all of the information on their forms, such as their social security.  Which I assure them is only kept for our records, but still, its a free prize, that they signed up to win.

The prizes and public service announcements are fun and assist the promotions and events department in running efficiently, but may favorite part is Kidcasting.  This may be because I get to get out of the office, and work directly with the street team.  I enjoy working with people and children, and even though I may not be working in promotions when I graduate, it is definitely something to consider.  If anything, this is surely telling me something about myself and future career paths.

This Sunday is our next Kidcasting/ Street Team event and I will be there!  Here are the details: