• Ad Age, Monday, June 26, 2006 11:30 AM

Two marketers have decided that the best way to capture consumers' attention is to give them what they really want and need--gasoline. Not surprisingly, the pair of advertisers are gasoline marketers--Shell and Sunoco. Shell is launching a "Million Gallon Giveaway" in which six top winners will get Shell gasoline for life, and 200,000-plus will get $10 gift cards for gas in an instant scratch-and-win promotion. Sunoco's "Free Fuel 5000" has a single grand prize of 10,000 gallons of its gasoline. The giveaway, which runs through August, also offers 5,000 instantly redeemable $10 gas cards. The two promotions were compared to "winning a pot of gold" by Gerald Celeste, director of the Trends Research Institute. He predicted that non-gas-related companies, beyond automakers now offering gas deals, will also jump into the arena--offering free gasoline and maybe even a year of free home-heating fuel. Shell will spend $30 million on broadcast and cable TV ads to support the initiative, while Sunoco is advertising the promo on national TV networks and cable's Speed Channel during races, as well as on national and spot radio.

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