Promo - March 2008 - (Page 54)

Tactics Sweepstakes Jef f B utchen Promotions 2.0 The new era of engaging audiences By now, many of you are quite familiar with the phrase Web 2.0 referring to the perceived second generation of the Internet. Welcome to Promotions 2.0. No longer are promotional sweeps, games and contests marginal add-ons. They have finally become core to the marketing mix and are increasingly being utilized by companies not only to drive traffic to their Web sites but also to build their brands. Just look at some of the innovative promotions that did just that: • Doritos executed its second annual Crash the Super Bowl Contest, resulting in a 60-second ad that consisted of a consumer-generated music video. • Pepsi launched its biggest promotion ever with a Justin Timberlake advertisement promoting its new Pepsi Stuff loyalty program. The old enter-and-win promotions no longer cut it in the age of relationship marketing. • Unilever’s Sunsilk hair care brand kicked off its Life Can’t Wait consumer-generated contest promotion featuring Madonna, Shakira and Marilyn Monroe. • P&G’s Tide brand created a My Talking Stain promotional microsite that invites consumers to submit their own stain ad and enter an instant win game. And my agency created for the NFL the “Who Wants It More” promotion. Who would have thought an advertisement done specifically to support a sweepstakes campaign would be rated by IAG as the most liked during this year’s Super Bowl? The promotion gave fans the opportunity to connect with players and the opportunity to win a trip to Super Bowl XLII. The winning story was then turned into a commercial. For the NFL, it was magic. “Allowing our players to tell their stories in their own words, and having our fans connect with their message is the ultimate goal of the NFL,” says Brian Fitzgerald, Marketing Director, NFL Digital Media. “For us it is about building strong personal relationships with our fan base.” Marketers have to learn about their customers. The old enter-and-win promotions no longer cut it in the age of relationship marketing. The days of mass audience prizing are over. Consumers now want targeted brand/lifestyle experiences. Like what? Online sweepstakes, user-generated contests and instantwin games. These drive brand engagement, and as a result create definitive and measurable results. Want to motivate people on the Internet? Then offer them interactive promotions like these. By putting the right incentive in front of the right audience, you can get consumers to act. Once you have their personal information, this enables the start of a dialogue for a permission-based, data-driven relationship, thus allowing you to deliver personalized and relevant offers. I have always said that people are dialed into the same frequency: WIFM (What’s In It For Me?). Now more than ever, promotional messaging is totally customized for the audience and new technologies are enabling brands to reach consumers when they are most likely to engage. Why limit your promotion to online or offline when you can be practically everywhere? So what’s driving the Promotions 2.0 revolution? 1) SocialSweeps: Promotions driven through blogs and social networking sites 2) Consumer Engagement: Online promotions that enable consumers to be part of the brand and share it with others 3) User Generated Content: Contests featuring videos, photos, and voting using digital platforms 4) Brand specific experiential prizing 5) Sweepcasts: sweepstakes messaging delivered through targeted podcasts. We have entered a new era for delivering engaging and P impactful promotions. Welcome to Promotions 2.0. l Jeff Butchen is president of Project Support Team & teamDigital. He can be contacted at jbutchen@ projectsupport.com W For more articles on sweepstakes, go to http://promomagazine.com Newsletter Web RSS Webinar Conference Podcast 54 March 2008 / WWW.PROMOMAGAZINE.COM / Promo http://www.promomagazine.com http://www.promomagazine.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Promo - March 2008

Promo - March 2008 Editor's Note Girls' Club New Eco Regs? They're Not Going Anywhere Spreads Easily RFID Ramp-Up From Backyard to Broadcast Commentary VROOOM! Stuff We Can't Do Here Yet Q&A: Measuring Up Free Ink The Agency Center Resource Center Promotions 2.0 Index of Advertisers

Promo - March 2008

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