Brian Quinton for PROMO Xtra  — To mark the pending first anniversary of its Shop Your Way buyer rewards programs in its Sears and Kmart retail brands, Sears Holding Corp. has launched a contest that will give one lucky loyalty member up to a billion points in their account, just in time for Christmas shopping this fall.

The only catch: They have to give half of the points to charity.

That’s not a catch but an incentive, according to a survey Sears and Kmart commissioned earlier this month from Kelton Research. According to those findings, 81% of Americans say that if they came into a large sum of money, they’d most likely donate a portion of that award to a charity, non-profit or other aid organization.

The “What Would You Do with One Billion Points?” contest allows the 17 million Shop Your Way members to do just that. The contest winner will have the choice of giving half those points to one or two of SHC’s three long-time charity partners (low-income housing rehabber Rebuilding Together, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, or the March of Dimes), or splitting the donation between one of Sears’ partners and a charity of their choice that meets basic contest qualifications.

rs and Kmart Shop Your Way members can enter themselves into the competition by submitting a 45-second video  at a dedicated microsite explaining just what they would do if they won a billion loyalty points. In a twist to encourage submissions, the prize pool started at 100,000 points on July6 14. Every video entered adds another 10,000 loyalty points to the prize total until it reaches that 1-billion-point limit. A counter at the site keeps track of the number of points in the kitty—at press time, 100,440,000.

Read the full article at promomagazine.com.

Filed under: Latest Postings on July 20th, 2010