Capital One Capitalizes

Capital One is becoming known for their annual mascot challenges the credit card company holds annually. Since 2002, Capital One has chosen the National Mascot of the Year in the United States. University teams enter their mascots in the contest.
This year the winner was... DRUM ROLL PLEASE....

the Bearcat of the University of Cincinnati!!!!

I bet you got that right? Ha Ha
I was thinking the same thing...
My thoughts were:

A. I've never heard of this pseudo event.
B. Don't know any of the mascots that have been in it.
C. Don't really care about these types of challenges.

But apparently it's a much bigger event in the U.S. and
they take it a lot more serious than us Canadians. That doesn't
surprise me, seeing as they are much more serious about high
school and college sports. This is how Capital One capitalized
(good pun eh?) on the idea! It was newsworthy because Americans
really care about university and college teams, including
the mascots.

From what I can see, Capital One doesn't try to sell anything
at these annual events. But, rather they purely seek publicity.
And, apparently they are achieving it.

It's also very effective that they have an app you can buy
for your iPHONE where you can vote for your favourite mascot
and play their character on screen. They also have a Facebook
and Twitter account for fans.