Carlsbad, CA, Monday August 23, 2010
Last month Upper Deck unveiled an exciting new initiative designed to further engage the company’s loyal collector base. The “Upper Deck Volunteer Alliance” is a program free of charge that’s open to collectors from around the world that enables them to earn Upper Deck merchandise simply by helping the company promote the hobby. Upper Deck has been pleasantly surprised by the response it has gotten from collectors looking to help share the fun of collecting trading cards.



Each month the company assigns members of the group a mission to accomplish and rewards individuals based on the quality of their efforts. Last month Upper Deck assigned members of the Volunteer Alliance to help promote their local hobby shops. Members helped shops create Facebook pages for their businesses, recorded YouTube commercials for shops and even volunteered to help out in the stores. This month the mission is to share the fun of collecting with people who do not currently collect or who used to collect.



“Word-of-mouth advertising is the most powerful form of advertising in the world so it is pretty awesome to have a group of hundreds of brand advocates in our Volunteer Alliance sharing their love of the hobby with others,” said Upper Deck’s Sports Marketing & Social Media Manager Chris Carlin. “Some will donate cards to children’s hospitals or Boys & Girls clubs while others may create an online community mentoring new collectors. Members of the Upper Deck Volunteer Alliance are very creative, so we are interested to see what they come up with and we are prepared to reward them for how inspired they get.”



It is free to become a member of the Upper Deck Volunteer Alliance. Fans simply need to have an online account with Upper Deck and e-mail the company at UpperDeckMarketing@upperdeck.com with the following information:



Upper Deck Online Account Username

Name

Email Address

Favorite Sports



Members have until Friday, September 17, to share with Upper Deck how they showed others the fun of collecting sports cards and memorabilia. Not a member of the Upper Deck Volunteer Alliance yet? Join today!



About Upper Deck
Upper Deck is the leading sports and entertainment trading card and collectibles company. For more information on Upper Deck and its products please visit www.upperdeck.com