The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Athletics Department played a clever trick on their loyal fanbase on Friday, April 1st (April Fools Day) that served as a great way to generate excitement around the upcoming football season.
UT Chattanooga posted an announcement on their Athletics Website declaring that the University would be officially changing their school colors from traditional Blue to an environmentally friendly Green. The extensive writeup included mockups of the new school logo, quotes from UTC Athletic Director Rick Hart, and even an official "Blue + Gold = Green" tagline that supported the overall campaign.
The real trick was played on fans when they attempted to click on several hyperlinks throughout the official announcement to learn more. The hyperlinks were directed to a landing page declaring to readers that the campaign was an April Fools Joke and as a reward for their active participation, they would receive a special one-day ticket offer for the upcoming 2011 football season. Fans could receive (1) free meal voucher for each of UTC's home games during the 2011 season with the purchase of season tickets.
UTC's April Fools Day campaign was very clever and well-thought out... a simple way to generate some buzz around non-traditional holidays throughout the calendar year. Per GoMocs.com, the campaign generated 2,000 unique hits in the 16 hours it was featured live on the site - four (4) times the amount of traffic a non-preview/recap story would normally receive. The campaign ended up generating 31 new season ticket sales in 16 hours, which is a pretty notable figure given the fact that the University has a season ticketholder base just over 2,600.
Click here to learn more about the results of the campaign.
