To help kick off this year's holiday season, on November 15, Bloom supermarkets will sponsor an attempt to break the Guinness World Record(TM) for most couples kissing simultaneously at Furman University's Paladin Stadium in Greenville, S.C. The Bloom attempt, dubbed "Kissletoe 2008," will be the featured halftime event during the Paladins' final home football game, against archrival Georgia Southern University. The game will be televised to approximately nine million viewers on Fox Sports' FSN South, kicking off at 3 p.m."We can't wait to attempt to break this fun world record with Furman's students, fans and the entire Upstate community," said Robin Johnson, Director of Marketing and Brand Development for Bloom. "Bloom is always looking for novel, creative ways to engage our local communities in our unique culture of being straightforward, thoughtful, and optimistic in everything we do--inside and outside of our stores. We challenged our advertising agency partner, Boone Oakley (of Charlotte) to help us find an unusual way to help the Upstate usher in the Holidays, and they brought us the Kissletoe idea. Of course, we 'embraced' the idea immediately!"
The existing record of 6,980 couples (13,960 participants) was set in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on September 1, 2007. However, Greenville's attempt to break Tuzla's kissing
record faces significant logistical hurdles, and Bloom invites community members to bring a date to Furman's November 15 football game to cheer the Paladins and take part in this potentially historic event. Guinness verification requires all qualifying kisses to be on the lips and last at least ten seconds.To pack the minimum 13,962 sweethearts into a stadium that seats 16,000, Bloom will distribute thousands of two-sided, boy/girl, Kissletoe invitations to Furman University students beginning November 5, along with a 15-foot, giant sprig of mistletoe that will be hoisted outside of the school's student center that day. Additionally, Bloom will distribute promotional Kissletoe air fresheners, both at the game and at the seven Upstate Bloom supermarkets located in Anderson, Greenville, Greer, Mauldin, Seneca and Simpsonville.
"This is one of the more unique sponsorship activities we've been involved with," stated David Nunnery, General Manager of the Furman Sports Network, a division of IMG College that manages the multi-media rights for Furman. "We think this is a fun event that will generate a lot of excitement around the city and bring added exposure to an already big game at Furman."
For more information and tickets, visit http://www.shopbloom.com/ or http://www.kissletoe2008.com/.
