Budget Rent A Car Takes Detour Into Blogosphere.

CONSUMERS TYPICALLY consider renting a car only when the need arises, but Budget Rent A Car is trying to get to them before that via the blogosphere.

Budget's "Up your budget" scavenger hunt promotion, which ended last week, was aimed at bloggers and blog readers. Since October, they've logged on to upyourbudget.com for daily video and text clues to help them find the public location of an orange sticker with a toll-free number.

The first person in each of the 16 cities in the promo to call the number and later upload photo documentation of their discovery netted $10,000.

"We spent a lot less on this than if we had bought one 3D-second commercial during prime time on a highly rated show," said Becky Alseth, vp-brand marketing for Cendant Car Rental Group which operates Budget and Avis.

The promo, via Impax Marketing, Philadelphia, was touted on 76 blogs either by bloggers who briefly wrote about the contest or by cartoons created by famed blogger Hugh McLeod.

The search created an instant community of hunters who shared a portion but not all of their clue solutions. Some participants even traveled from one city to another to chase the stickers.

Overall, the effort drew more than 100,000 unique visitors, according to the company. Budget's presence was subtle--video clues usually were filmed from a moving car and footage started from a Budget rental location.

Budget will launch another blog campaign next spring. "In traditional marketing you try to find your target consumer and talk to them but you don't know what they are saying about your brand," said Alseth. "With blogs, they find you and tell you what they want."

~~~~~~~~

By Mike Beirne