Bora Zivkovic, DrugMonkey, and I have been really impressed by this idea by the online folks over at the American Chemical Society’s Chemical & Engineering News. This week, their blog network, CENtral Science, has been promoting their presence at the upcoming national ACS meeting in Boston.
Folks may not know this but ACS is the largest professional scientific society in the world with 161,000 members.
DrugMonkey, the king of science blogging schwag, has previously mentioned the benefits of such a promotion several times to another science blogging network but it never got traction with the powers-that-be. But here’s the idea from CENtral Science – from this post:
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Here’s how to win:
- Six key words will be hidden among the blogs between August 15–22
- Collect all six key words and bring them to the C&EN booth #527
- Pick up your FREE CENtral Science t-shirt*
- Wear your t-shirt in the exposition hall Monday and Tuesday and you might be selected by C&EN staff to receive one of the VISA gift cards (worth up to $50) given out every half hour
*While supplies last
CONTEST RULES: This promotion is ONLY valid from 8/15 to 8/24. A total of 350 t-shirts will be given out (one per person) from 9:00 a.m. through 5:00 p.m. on 8/23 and 8/24 at booth #527 in the expo hall only. To receive a t-shirt each individual must present all 6 (correct) key words. Winners must be ACS members to participate. ACS staff and their families are not eligible. All gift card recipients must be wearing a CENtral Science t-shirt. There is no guarantee of winning any prize. Gift card winners will be chosen at random every half hour during published expo times.
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Now THAT’s how you do it.
You have to read the blogs to pick up each of the six keywords.
Three hundred and fifty T-shirts. 350!
And you wear them at the meeting.
And they give away a $50 $10, $25, or $50 gift cards every half hour for two days.
The T-shirt is very nice, by the way, and I’m grateful to C&EN Online editor, Rachel Pepling (Twitter) for sending me one. I will be wearing it for our panel discussion on Tuesday! Rachel’s also a Gator so she gets even more favor points from me.
Once again, hunt me down in Boston if you’d like to say hello. I’ll be the one in the yellow CENtral Science T-shirt.