Online Game to “Beat the Street”
Say someone gave you $250,000. How would you invest it? And no, heading off to the track does not constitute an investment strategy.
A new version of the “Beat the Street” fantasy investment game from financial media company TheStreet.com hopes to give trading novices the confidence to play alongside the finance professionals.
Starting earlier this month, registrants for the “Beat the Street” game at www.beatthestreetgame.com will use $250,000 imaginary dollars to build a portfolio of five stocks. Over the course of the 12-week promotion, players can trade those stocks, hoping to increase the value of the overall portfolio by either taking long positions (holding a stock in the hope its price will rise) or selling short (agreeing to sell a stock at a future price while betting that price will in fact go down.)
The game will select weekly a weekly winner for a $5,000 award, and the player with the best portfolio performance over the 12-week run will receive a grand prize of $60,000. The company hopes to signs a different sponsor for each week of the game, although those details have not been finalized at press time.
TheStreet.com ran two earlier “Beat the Street” promos last year. But this new version has been designed by Promotions.com, an online promo firm acquired by the financial media company when it purchased interactive marketing company Corsis last fall.
“This time around, we created the game in-house, leveraging the technology offerings of Promotions.com, whose team of experts has successfully executed some of the largest and most complex games and promotions worldwide,” said Erika Faust, senior vice president of marketing for TheStreet.com, in a statement.
Among other recent games, Promotions.com was responsible for the design and operation of the online portion of McDonald’s Monopoly 2007 campaign. The firm has also done work for Coca-Cola and Verizon.
Besides its own site, TheStreet.com operates a network of finance-related Web sites, including MainStreet.com, BankingMyWay.com and Stockpickr.com. The “Beat the Street” game will be the first promotion TheStree.com has advertised across this group of sites. It will also be marketed via search engines and through relationships with other Web portals.
This version of the fantasy investment game has been specifically designed to attract both Wall Street newbies and seasoned professionals. That drive to attract a broader audience is intentional. Publicly held TheStreet.com has made it clear in the recent past that it is looking to attract Web advertisers beyond the credit-card companies and online trading houses who were its bread and butter in the early days.
The push for more varied eyeballs reportedly played a part both in last year’s Corsis acquisition and in the launch of consumer-oriented site MainStreet.com. As a result of moves like that, TheStreet.com reported in February that revenue from non-financial advertisers made up 44% of its totals ad income in 2007, compared to only 27% in 2006.
Related Topics: Promo Trends
