Sun couldn't afford to promote 24 through advertising. Besides, even the most seductive ads would be no substitute for actually playing the game, he knew. "Customers have all sorts of questions before they buy: 'How do you play it?' 'How long does it take?' 'Is it fun?' You've got to get it into their hands to try."
Fifty cities and 2 million kids later, that's exactly what Sun has done, using a series of low-cost tournaments to build a base of players, increase his distribution, and garner hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of free publicity for his product. More than 400,000 copies of the game have been sold in two years. And revenues will exceed $1 million this year.
Why tournaments? The idea grew out of seeds Sun had been planting for some time among educators and business leaders -- people he hoped would influence his market and lend their imprimatur to his game. Working the education circles and attending conferences helped. Scholastic DynaMath magazine, an educational publication that targets middle-school children, ran a national 24 contest for 30,000 fifth- and sixth-graders across the country. Soon after, Al Sterling, director of the Chicago Public Schools Adopt-a-School program, decided to test a tournament in Chicago. The 1989 pilot, which involved 3,000 elementary classrooms, proved so successful that Sterling persuaded his colleagues to take the tournament citywide the next year. With the enthusiasm of school officials behind him, Sun had little trouble winning the support of St. Paul Federal Bank as sponsor.
He offered a guaranteed audience -- 125,000 Chicago-area kids and their parents. The bank's logo would appear on all the games and promotional material. Bookmarks printed with the game and the sponsor's name would go to more than 100,000 homes. Suntex would run a publicity campaign, assuring the sponsor prominent mention. All for the cost of distributing and promoting the product -- about $10 for each of 4,000 classrooms. "The fee covers everything," Sun says. "The event costs the schools nothing. And the kids get the games for free. Everyone walks away a winner."
On a December day this past year, Sun hosted his first major tournament in Chicago, with four newspapers, five camera crews, and six radio stations in tow to cover the scene. There were 50 finalists (culled from thousands of inner-city kids) in the throes of high-stakes mental arithmetic, screaming, "24!" They competed fiercely to be the best, to the delight of teachers, parents, and the thousands who would view reports that night on the evening news.
The results were tangible and immediate: Toys "R" Us sold out of 24. Dominick's, a Chicago supermarket chain, sold 7,500 copies that Christmas season. Its competitor, Eagle Foods, sold 3,000. A major book chain in the area moved another 3,000 games. And Waldenbooks, one of the country's largest booksellers, crowned 24 its number-one-selling game last year.
Manufacturers, banks, and the media began lining up to sponsor the 24 Challenge in other cities. Sponsors came in all sizes -- global and local -- and from all industries. In Columbia, S.C., the contest was sponsored by Bojangles Restaurant, and IBM furnished the games to classrooms; In St. Louis, Domino's Pizza hosted the contests; in five southern states, the sponsor was South Central Bell. Local radio jocks were playing the game on the air.
Sun estimates the game and tournaments have been covered in 15 top newspapers. He counts at least 100 mentions in print, radio, and television combined. "I would have had to spend $100,000 to $200,000 in radio and television advertising to get this kind of exposure for the product. It's extremely cost-effective. We've covered more than 60,000 classrooms at $10 a classroom. And most of that has been paid for by sponsors. To get the same amount of publicity and product recognition, we'd have had to spend $3 million -- strictly advertising." And although Sun is almost embarrassed to admit it, the tournaments have actually become a profit center for the company. "I could have a business doing well on sponsorship fees alone," he says.
Alternative Distribution Channels
Going to trade shows and using independent reps are standard methods of expanding distribution with little capital. Still, innovating in distribution is a time-honored way for entrepreneurs to make their mark. From Federal Express to Wal-Mart to Dell Computer, plenty of companies have gotten their start with a founder who had an idea for a better way to deliver goods or services to the consumer. But it's not always by choice that entrepreneurs go outside traditional distribution channels. Just ask Ted Bernstein of Assured Enterprises, in Chicago, who claims his firm sold $220 million in life-insurance policies last year, bringing in just under $1 million in revenues.
Back in 1982 Bernstein was sure he had an idea for a new service that would save consumers money. There was just one problem: it was bound to alienate all the people who would normally sell it.
At the time, Bernstein was a college student who -- following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather -- had already begun selling insurance. But he wasn't happy. Bernstein hated the bad reputation of insurance agents. To do their job, they had to become close to their customers. But because they were paid on commission, he thought they couldn't really have their customers' interests at heart. If an agent got a wealthy client, for example, the fixed-percentage-of-premium commission on a large policy seemed like an exorbitant reward to Bernstein -- a reward that he knew came, indirectly, out of the client's pocket. So he decided to change that. "I would not work in the insurance industry" as a commissioned salesperson, he vowed. "I would not be the butt of Woody Allen jokes all my life."
