General Motors has created “a road show called the ‘GMC Monday Night Football Tour’ that targets important game markets the weekend before games, and gets a media boost from NFL players themselves,” according to Karl Greenberg of MEDIAPOST.com. The tour will “visit Dallas, Tampa Bay, Detroit, New York City, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Boston, New Orleans and Seattle," and will feature appearances by "current and former NFL players including Miles Austin, DeSean Jackson, Mike Alstott and Tony Dorsett,” as well as ESPN "MNF" announcer Mike Tirico. Tirico will be featured “in a faux TV studio where visitors to the tour can sit behind a studio desk and act the role of announcers, while video footage of their comments on the upcoming game is edited between two pre-shot segments.” GMC National Sales Promotion Manager Chris Hornberger said, “They are using their own social media pages to promote their appearances; some will be doing radio interviews to promote it as well.” The tour centers on a experiential program at “high-traffic areas in the above markets the weekends before Monday Night Football games that mixes football-skills challenges with test drives, with GMC getting consumer data via bar code lanyards worn by participants.” Hornberger said that the tour has brought in “Under Armour, the official sponsor of the NFL Scouting Combine events,” which will let participants “compare their scores against NFL pros.” The effort will also involve "a cause-marketing element via a partnership with the United Way” (MEDIAPOST.com, 9/21).
