AIM Gets Big 12 Push

By Marla Dial, dbusiness.com
AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 1

In hopes of expanding its collegiate client base, AIM Technologies Inc. has landed rights to an important test market for its FanCard program: viewers of the upcoming Big 12 football conference championship game.

In yet another "first" to add to its string of credits, the local company will offer the fan loyalty program in a one-day-only format to viewers of the University of Texas-Nebraska face-off on Saturday at San Antonio's Alamo Dome. The FanCard program normally takes place during the course of an entire season and encourages attendance at sports events.

Under normal conditions, the program - which has been adopted by more than 50 teams in a variety of sports leagues - involves a free "fan card" which holders swipe at a kiosk every time they attend a game. With every swipe, the person provides some personal information that teams and sponsors use for market research; in exchange, he or she receives points that can be redeemed for prizes.

For the Big 12 championship, the program will operate differently, AIM marketing director Bill Nielsen told dbusiness.com. For one thing, fans don't actually have to attend the game to receive prizes. For the first time, they'll be able to register for a FanCard online - at www.fancard.net or www.big12sports.com - and their names will automatically be entered for a drawing.

Fans who actually attend the game and swipe a card at one of the 20 kiosks located in the Alamo Dome also are eligible for prizes - which will include a year's supply of gasoline, a computer or season football tickets to a Big 12 school of their choosing - but will receive coupons for other items as well.

Nielsen said the online sign-up feature will be more widely available soon. Currently, fans sign up for a card when attending one of the team's home games, but AIM plans to offer the virtual sign-up when it relaunches its Web site this month.

The Big 12 deal is also a little unusual in that the FanCards will be good only for one game.

"It's a test for both of us: for the Big 12 to see how fans react to this, if they like the concept, and also for us to see if we can handle that many people at one time, in this situation where it's a one-day event," Nielsen said.

Saturday also could be a litmus test for a number of universities that AIM has approached about the FanCard program. The University of Texas signed up as the company's first - and so far only - collegiate customer earlier this year, but executives are hoping that the dry run this weekend will win them more customers from the Big 12 and other conferences.

"We're using it as a test for those schools to get a chance to look at it, and also for other schools and conferences," Nielsen said.

Although the company has at least a toehold in a number of sports leagues, he said, the collegiate market "is a slower growth area for us because the schools are more conservative about throwing things at their fans," and many already have some kind of loyalty program in place.

"There's a lot of interest from the schools, but they want to see these things work," he said. "They want to see it and touch it before they commit to something."

A Big 12 spokesman was not available for comment, but Nielsen said the championship game deal came about as a result of UT's existing relationships with both AIM and Host Communications, a Dallas-based sports marketing firm.

Host was interested in running a FanCard program for the championship game, and the venue is already wired - thanks to a multi-year contract AIM signed with the San Antonio Spurs earlier this year - so the one-day proposition was financially feasible.

AIM and Host will split the costs of the program. AIM makes money by selling sponsorships and advertising on its kiosks, then splits the revenue with the sports teams it partners with.

The company, which has received $4 million in venture funding, has been gaining steadily in the $26 billion sports marketing industry this year, seemingly always breaking into yet another league.

Its deal with the Spurs - the first for the National Basketball Association - has been its biggest, signing up 35,000 FanCard members.

But the company also has inked a number of deals with baseball teams, including the Oakland A's and St. Louis Cardinals, and only recently announced its first league-wide contract in a deal involving Triple A baseball.

Marla Dial covers the Austin region for dbusiness.com.

E-mail her with story ideas or comments.