• by Karl Greenberg , July 30, 2010

Suzuki is launching a series of promotional programs under a banner called Suzuki AllPoints. The program, for which Suzuki created a microsite at SuzukiAuto.com, comprises a palette of programs wherein people can earn points toward an array of prizes by using social media platforms and uploading content.

Registered users can earn points and sweepstakes entries for several program activities. Depending on the activity, players can earn from 10 to 100 points -- 250 per day, max.

Players earn points by doing various activities on Suzuki's AllPoints site, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube channel. Monthly high scorers win a $500 Apple Store gift card. Players are also automatically entered in a weekly drawing for $25 Shell or Best Buy cards. And they are also entered in a grand-prize sweeps dangling a 2011 Suzuki Kizashi GTS. In addition to the car, the company is also offering things like a Sony 3D TV, and Garmin GPS as prizes.

The program will include a promotion launching Aug. 25, called "Live Large Video Contest." AllPoints registrants can create and submit a video on how he or she "lives large" a line extending Suzuki's tag, "Live Large, Drive Small." YouTube users will vote for first, second and third prize winners, with the grand prize a trip for two to any city in the U.S. First prize is a $1,000 Macy's or Target gift card, and second is Sony PlayStation 3, per the company.

The company is using the Suzuki AllPoints program to generate buzz for events where participants gain points for tweeting about them or linking content about them to Facebook, for instance. One such event is the "L.A.: The Hard Way" road trip, beginning mid-August.

Editors from Motor Trend and other magazines will take the Suzuki Kizashi car, the Suzuki Equator truck, and the Suzuki V-Strom 650 motorcycle through Japan, Siberia, Alaska, Canada, and back to Los Angeles over the period of a few weeks. Suzuki will also cover a high-speed testing of a Suzuki Kizashi at Bonneville Salt Flats, and Suzuki's presence at the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show.

The program will also include an online racing game called "Kizashi Ring of Fire," launching Sept. 1 and integrated with the Tokyo to L.A. drive, where players race a Kizashi around four future-themed tracks that mirror the geography the road-tripping Kizashi will traverse. Players earn points for lap time and driving.

"We are trying to tie everything together," says Glenn McClanan, account director at Matrix Consultants, the Big Bear, Calif.-based agency that developed the program for Suzuki.

McClanan says that in addition to generating social-media buzz about Suzuki, the program is designed to give people a reason to keep returning to Suzuki's consumer Web site.

"I visited a dealership a couple of months ago, and what struck me was how much stuff they did in dealerships -- massage chairs, for instance -- to make people want to come back," he says. "In the same way we want them to come back to Suzuki.com and make us part of their everyday life."

McClanan says the company is promoting the site with online ads, behavioral targeting and search, via links on other Suzuki sites, and social media channels. "You do want to promote it but you want to be organic, too," he says.

Although the program officially ends early next year when Suzuki awards grand prizes, the platform is expandable and may well continue, per McClanan. "It will be more additive than subtractive. We designed it so we can add new features, and there are all sorts of possibilities with mobile that we are exploring," he says.