Pacific Sunwear Gets Promo-Active With Assists from Vans, Dew

Wrapping its beach lifestyle image in like-minded brands, retailer Pacific Sunwear will align with Vans, Rusty and Mountain Dew for its biggest store event to date, a surf-themed sweepstakes targeting girls who shop its juniors department, 'Betty's Space."

The 'Pretty Stoked" program, created by teen promo specialist The Creative Couch, Santa Monica, Calif., will run March 8-April 15 at all 356 Pacific Sunwear stores. Prizes include trips for two to Oahu to attend the 1999 Triple Crown of Surf, which Pacific Sunwear just signed to sponsor. Also, girls can win trips to attend the Surf Diva Surf Camp in La Jolla, Rusty surfboards and wetsuits, Sungold Eyewear, Pacific Sunwear gift certificates and "Surf Diva packs" containing T-shirts, hats and other tchotchkes. The retailer hopes to turn store drawings into huge pr events by bringing in celebs and women's surf champions.

"We wanted to do something nationally that would not only get traffic in stores but get our name attached to brand names like Vans and Rusty," said Carol Apkarian, director of marketing for Pacific Sunwear.

The partners will help bankroll the promo's ad and travel expenses. Vans and Rusty already have a solid rep among the outdoorsy surf and extreme sports-inclined crowd. For Mountain Dew, the promo gives the brand an in to a new venue in which to reach its young, active demo through sampling, couponing and perhaps even an ongoing relationship with the retailer that would include co-branded fixtures, such as a Mountain Dew/Pacific Sunwear surfboard display. "Mountain Dew wants to have a strong presence in these retail stores because they're obviously going after that same market," said Creative Couch president Melisa Wolfson.

Along with store signage, word of the sweeps will reach girls through an ad in April issues of Teen People, Seventeen and Jump that take its cues from 1960s beach movie posters. Consumers can also link to a dedicated promotion page at each of the partners' Web sites.

As interest in surfing and boarding has grown among women in the last few years, so has the popularity of related clothing, both with athletes and their aspirational admirers. "We started carrying juniors five years ago mostly because we noticed girls were buying guys clothes," Apkarian said. "Not for their boyfriends, but for themselves."

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