Case Study

Blue Bunny Summer of Funlightenment

Overview

The Blue Bunny brand is known for fun… especially summer fun, but with COVID-19 affecting many summer plans, they had to pivot their marketing strategy and find safe & creative ways to bring summer fun back to their consumers’ lives. They turned to their trusted partners: FCBX, MRi, and ICFNext, to help them defeat boredom with fun! The Blue Bunny Summer of Funlightenment was the perfect promotion: a set of three exciting experiences, all with the shared goal of bringing fun directly to Blue Bunny consumers.

Blue Bunny’s Largest Media Campaign.. Ever

Looking to raise spirits and drum up some excitement for their brand, Blue Bunny sought to turn COVID-19’s “second summer” into a season-long party! It was time for a summer of funlightenment!

For this experience to be a success, it required three equally epic promotions. MRi’s experts got to work Identifying each promotion’s unique purpose, developing strategy and tactics, and executing the program to ensure all three promotions were a smashing success with bored Blue Bunny fans, earning over 1.1 billion media impressions!

Pool Giveaway

For the Summer of Funlightenment’s first installment, Blue Bunny sought to keep consumers cool during the summer heat, from the safety of their own homes. Enter the Blue Bunny Personal Pool Giveaway! Blue Bunny fans could enter the giveaway for a chance to win a 6ft wide personal Blue Bunny branded pool, equipped with special Load’d Sundae cup holders! Truly a one-of-a-kind experience!

In order to deliver this promotion to bored consumers during the height of the pandemic, MRi collaborated with Blue Bunny and their partners to put together this sweepstakes on a tight deadline. Once the strategy was finalized, MRi’s digital team got to work creating a responsive microsite that gave visitors a seamless and uniform experience no matter the device or browser. In addition, our project managers handled all timelines and legalities to make sure the promotion went off without a hitch. As the cherry on top, as with every promotion by MRi, we ensured the highest security at every step. At the end of the sweepstakes, MRi’s in-house fulfillment department customized packaging and sent Blue Bunny Personal Pools to 100 lucky winners!

Ticket Exchange

Part two of the Summer of Funlightenment aimed to bring back fun to everyone who was looking forward to an event this summer, only for it to then be canceled or postponed due to COVID-19. No traveling, no seeing friends, no movie theaters, no bars, no festivals – basically no fun… until the Blue Bunny Ticket Exchange program launched! Because so many people had their tickets canceled over the summer, Blue Bunny decided to make those tickets worth something. Consumers could take their canceled tickets, enter into a microsite, and have a chance to win a prize to replace their canceled tickets!

Submitted tickets were divided into four subcategories: music, sports, travel, and leisure. Each category had its own exciting prize pool! For example, music fans that missed out on a concert had a chance to win quality audio equipment, among other music-related prizes, to enjoy music at the comfort of their own home! Or, Sports fans with canceled tickets had a chance to win a brand new HD TV, so they could watch their favorite team play in high def. No matter the category, each prize pool was loaded with fun!

For this promotion, Blue Bunny needed to be able to validate canceled event tickets and award winners instantly. A seamless experience was important, consumers had been through enough this year, and they didn’t need a complicated and incohesive promotion to add any more frustration to their lives. With the use of MRi’s Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engine, rapidly validating event tickets or receipts became a breeze, as did awarding instant prizes to consumers. As with the pool giveaway, the experts at MRi managed every aspect of the promotion, and our digital team worked tirelessly to update the Funlightenment microsite as each new promotion launched.

Ice Screen Truck

What do you get when you combine an ice cream truck with a movie theater? The Blue Bunny Ice SCREEN Truck! The final phase of the Summer of Funlightenment campaign looked to bring friends and family together (safely) by taking the cinema experience directly to fans’ driveways. The Blue Bunny Ice Screen truck was a mobile movie theater full of fun frozen treats, heading out on the road to battle boredom. Consumers with a driveway within 25 miles of the designated cities could enter for a chance to win a private ice screen truck movie screening.

Everyone involved in the planning and execution of this unique program had to think quickly and come up with creative solutions to help bring the promotion to life. In addition, since the truck would only be visiting select cities, verifying the eligibility of each drawing winner, communicating with the truck vendor to solidify showtimes, and securing movie licensing for the specific titles presented a distinctive challenge. Even with all the logistics on the backend of the promotion, the sweepstakes went off without a hitch and proved to be a FUN experience for consumers!

An Award Winning Promotional Campaign

While we’re not in this business for the awards, they certainly are nice to have. The promotional marketing industry is filled with so many amazing and innovative campaigns, it is an honor to be recognized in any capacity.

Along with Blue Bunny and its agency partners, FCBX and ICFNext, Marketing Resources Inc. is proud to announce that the Summer of Funlightenment sweepstakes took home several reputable awards.

PRO Awards, from Chief Marketer: Gold Winner-Best Vehicle-Based Campaign. Silver Winner- Best COVID Era Campaign.

REGGIE Awards, from the ANA; Gold Winner- Best Small Budget Campaign. Silver Winner- Local, Regional or Market Specific Marketing.

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Capabilities

Marketing Promotions

Digital Services

Case Studies

Resources

Insights

Careers

Sweepstakes 101

Contact

Oak Park/Hybrid

Systems and Network Administrator

About Us

Marketing Resources, Inc. is a leading promotional marketing agency that specializes in purpose-driven promotions. With over 25 years in the business, MRi helps brands Identify, Develop, Execute, and Analyze promotions and marketing projects that consumers love. We’re a team full of committed, passionate, solutions-driven, hands-on, and innovative individuals who collaborate to bring success to our client’s programs.

Overview

The System and Network Administrator plays a critical role on the MRi Digital team, and overall in the success of our company. They are responsible for the day-to-day administration and technical support of complex Linux servers, Virtual Infrastructure and Systems Management, and maintenance and support of end-user systems. You’ll be working closely with our teams on client projects and making sure our internal systems are updated and secure.

Our ideal candidate will be proactive, have great organizational skills, not shy away from communication with our teams, think through and help solve different problems, and gain an understanding of our business to help our team achieve amazing results.

In this role, we’re looking for that person who does not accept average.

You will help us create the best digital, promotions, products, and campaigns to achieve our client’s marketing goals. MRi takes pride in our ability to constantly push the boundaries of development in the digital promotions space, and you will take an active role in working closely with our client services, business development, creative, and project management team to guide, develop, and deliver exceptional work for our clients and partners.

Responsibilities May Include

Design, install, configure, upgrade, maintain, monitor, and tune performance of Linux-based servers and infrastructure, both internal and client-related promotions.
Provide support for problems and issues that come up from our clients, vendors, and internal teams.
Examine and audit various server logs and determine if any corrective action is required.
Review releases of new operating systems and evaluate the implementation in the enterprise.
Install, configure, and maintain server firewall and other security software.
Identify and provide technical resolution for potential security breaches, then establish and monitor security and apply appropriate fixes.
Implement and maintain technical solutions for disaster recovery and business continuity of enterprise and client systems.
Select the ideal server hardware for the company’s needs and administer physical server hardware, including repair and replacement of parts as necessary.
Monitor and maintain proper end-user system security by ensuring operating systems and software are up-to-date and applying patches as necessary.
Maintenance and support of all end-user service accounts including Office365, Google Workspace, hosted VoIP accounts.

The Essentials

1-2 years of experience in Linux server administration in a small to midsize environment.
Bachelor’s degree or minimum 4 years of related work experience.
Able to effectively plan, deploy and administer Linux servers in an enterprise environment.
Strong familiarity with Linux OS, Windows, macOS, application, and hardware troubleshooting.
Familiarity with VMware ESXi and XenServer/XCP-NG, DigitalOcean, Amazon AWS, and Docker.
Networking and Storage – Familiarity with pfSense (*BSD pf) firewalls, Ubiquiti network gear, Synology NAS equipment, iSCSI, NFS, SMB, and AFP file protocols. TCP/IP, UDP, and VLAN. configurations to manage networking and storage.
Ability to compose thorough and clear documentation on routine tasks, standard operating procedures, and other documents beneficial to team members.

You’ll stand out if you have experience with

Debian-based Linux or Ubuntu operating systems, roles, services, concepts, security, permissions, middleware, and facilities required. (e.g. SMTP, NFS, SMB, iptables, LVM, LUKS).
Amazon AWS S3, EC2, and ElasticBeanstalk required.
Samba4 as an Active Directory Domain Controller, Administering Active Directory through. the use of GPOs and OUs.
Supporting Windows and macOS systems.
Scripting concepts and methods with competence in at least one relevant language (e.g. Bash, Python, Perl, etc.)
Internet clients/servers/protocols, including HTTPS, SSH, MTAs (e.g. Postfix).
An ability to explain complex technical processes in a more simplified version to team members, clients, and partners.
Experience with IT project management practices and techniques.
Strong written and oral communication skills.

The Perks

Medical insurance options
Dental insurance
401(K) plan with company match
Flexible remote work policy
Paid sick days
Generous vacation and paid holidays

Interested in applying?

Send Resumes to resumes@marketingresources.com