Interstate Battery Giving Away Tundra With Wrong Horsepower

Interstate Battery has decided to promote their “Outrageously Dependable” product right alongside a brand-new Tundra. Between now and the SuperBowl, Interstate is running a contest to give away a Tundra “carrying case” for a brand new battery. As if that clever promo wasn’t funny enough, check this out: Interstate’s advertising people have no idea how much horsepower a new 5.7 Tundra has.

Interstate is giving away a 5.7L V8 Tundra, which has just a touch more than 270 hp (try 381)

Whoops! Here’s the full ad and more details on the contest:

Click for a larger view

I found this ad while reading sports news yesterday (Jan. 27th, 2011) and found myself highly confused. After visiting the contest’s website, I found out what happened – somebody made a mistake. From the official rules:

One (1) Grand Prize Winner will receive a 2011 Toyota Tundra Crew Max 5.7L V8 4×4…One hundred forty (140) Daily Prize Winners will each receive one (1) Interstate Automotive Battery Certificate (the “Certificate”).  The Certificate entitles its bearer to receive one (1) Interstate battery (Interstate®, Mega-Tron®II or Mega-Tron®Plus) free of charge.

You can register for your chance to win on www.interstatecarryingcase.com, so long as you don’t mind sharing your email address with Interstate.

Visit https://www.interstatecarryingcase.com/

Soap Box Time

Here’s what I’d like to say to the people at Interstate Battery (who will hopefully read this):

1. Cool contest and good idea – I entered and I hope I win. Associating your product with a Toyota product is a great way to convey the concept of Outrageous Durability. Toyota’s products are well-known for reliability and quality.

2. I’m guessing the original plan was to give away a V6 and the creative didn’t change when the truck changed. Still, the contest site looks good and it’s a clever concept. My compliments!

3. Why not reach out to small publishers? Why in the world wouldn’t you contact small publishers to promote your contest?

• Tundra websites like ours, TundraSolutions, TundraGeeks, TundraTalk, ToyotaTundraz, etc. would be glad to mention a Tundra giveaway.
• Advertising on small sites is incredibly cost effective. I’m not complaining here because you didn’t buy ad space from us, but our site (and others like it) are so inexpensive compared to your massive MSN ad buy. I’m willing to bet that ads on our site would perform better than ads on the MSN sports site too.
• Toyota dealers too. ToyotaPartsCenter.net, for example, reaches thousands of Toyota owners every month interested in buying parts. Seems like another easy opportunity.

Anyways, rant over.

Go enter this contest!