NBC Joins Up With Sears After CBS Enlists K mart

Two weeks after CBS announced that it would be hooking up with K mart to promote its fall schedule, NBC said Tuesday it will be doing the same thing with Sears.

Whereas the CBS-K mart campaign will feature a viewer contest with more than 6 million prizes, the NBC-Sears venture will offer grand-prize winners “instant stardom” by flying them to Hollywood to appear on NBC’s prime-time programs and in promotional spots for the network.

The promotion, announced at the annual NBC affiliates convention here by John Miller, senior vice president of NBC Entertainment, and Thomas E. Morris, vice president of marketing for Sears Merchandise Group, will run over a five-week period beginning Labor Day.

Miller called the venture “the largest and most exciting promotion in network history.”

The grand-prize winner in each of four weekly contests beginning Sept. 3 will receive, along with a part on a prime-time program and transportation for two to Los Angeles, use of a limousine, a deluxe hotel suite, a “beauty makeover,” shopping sprees, a luxury automobile and $10,000 in cash. Other prizes include cars, big-screen TVs, airline tickets, Sears gift certificates and NBC merchandise worth a total of $2 million.

To enter the contest, the entrant must answer simple questions about new NBC programs. Answers can be found in program descriptions that will appear in Sears advertising supplements beginning Labor Day. Entry blanks, available in the advertising supplements and at Sears stores, can be deposited in boxes at Sears stores.

Sears will also include an eight-page color insert describing the new NBC shows in more than 20 million SearsCharge billing statements in September. Descriptions of NBC’s fall lineup also will be inserted in the Sears fall catalogues, which wil be mailed to customers the week before the TV season begins.

As K mart stores will be doing for CBS, Sears retail stores throughout the country will feature “NBC fall preview centers” decorated with mobiles, banners, posters and billboards, and will bombard shoppers with public-address-system announcements. A special “preview video” highlighting the contest and the new NBC shows will play on television sets in the stores.