WWE® Takes Home The Gold For Annual Fan Axxess Tour
World Wrestling Entertainment® has won a Gold Award in the Mobile Marketing category from Corporate EVENT magazine for last year’s 2006 WrestleMania® 22 Fan Axxess tour.
A sister publication of the long-running EXHIBITOR magazine, Corporate EVENT magazine provides exclusive, strategic case studies of successful marketing events. Each year, Corporate EVENT hosts its annual Corporate EVENT Awards, honoring excellence in event-marketing strategy. The international competition is judged by renowned marketing/design experts from a variety of fields. Previous winners include Microsoft, Xerox, Ford, and Volkswagen.
This year, WWE was one of five winners honored for marketing events launched between March 1, 2005, and March 1, 2007 – taking home a Gold Award in the Mobile Marketing category for its 2006 WrestleMania 22 Fan Axxess Tour.
Serving as the official kick-off on the “Road to WrestleMania,” the Fan Axxess Tour is WWE’s largest annual interactive mobile marketing initiative, giving fans a chance to go behind the scenes with WWE Superstars, Legends, memorabilia, programming and the newest WWE products – from WWE Mobile™ to WWE 24/7™ On Demand and much more. In 2006, the Fan Axxess tour made multiple stops at shopping malls, festivals and WWE events in the U.S. and Canada during its 13-week run. The tour ended in Chicago during WWE’s annual pop culture spectacular, WrestleMania 22. . .
“The WrestleMania Fan Axxess Tour has developed into a fantastic annual event for WWE fans, affiliates, sponsors and promotional partners,” said Monty Ross, Senior Director of Marketing for WWE. “We are honored to be chosen by Corporate EVENT as a Gold Award winner, alongside past recipients such as Microsoft and Volkswagen. We’re continuing to expand and improve upon the program each year – as demonstrated by our successful 2007 Fan Axxess tour, which just wrapped up at WrestleMania 23 in Detroit.”
Corporate EVENT will make its official award announcement in its Fall issue, due out in September, which will contain a feature article devoted to WWE and the 2006 Fan Axxess Tour.
WWE® Hires D’Angeli, Seffens And Moore To Expand Marketing Effort
World Wrestling Entertainment® has hired marketing veterans Lou D’Angeli, Melissa Seffens and Stephan Moore to support its expanding marketing efforts. The three new employees will report to Monty Ross, Senior Director of Marketing.
Lou D’Angeli joined WWE as Director of Live Events Promotions & Booking in June 2006 before moving to his current position as Director of Promotions and Event Marketing. In addition to spearheading WWE’s annual and award-winning WrestleMania® Fan Axxess Tour, D’Angeli will seek out partnership opportunities to promote WWE and its roster of Superstars. D’Angeli brings more than 10 years of promotion and marketing experience to WWE, having previously served as Assistant General Manager and as Director of Marketing for the Budweiser Events Center in Loveland, Colo., where he negotiated, booked and promoted events for the 7,200 seat venue.
Melissa Seffens has been hired as Director of Network Affiliate Marketing. Bringing more than 10 years of Television Promotions and marketing experience to WWE, Seffens will serve as liaison with all WWE network programming partners to ensure seamless brand integration. Before joining WWE, Seffens worked as Creative Services Director for Grant Communications, where she oversaw creative services and corporate promotions for the WB, CW and My Network TV network affiliates. Prior to that, Seffens worked for Clear Channel Television Memphis serving as the Promotions Director for WLMT, consistently the number-one-ranked UPN affiliate in the country.
Stephan Moore has been hired as Retail Development Manager. Moore will assist in the marketing and promotion of licensed products and key marketing initiatives in WWE’s growing field of retailers. Previously, Moore worked for Vivendi Universal, directing their consumer life cycle marketing efforts. Prior to that, he spent 15 years with SonyBMG in various marketing and product development manager positions. As a veteran of business marketing and promotions, Moore’s professional experience includes work with major retailers Amazon.com, Borders, and Wal-Mart.
