Interactive Marketing Awards
Best Overall
G6’s smallest-screen debut revved dealer traffic — and brand image, taking our top prize and best SMS/MMS campaign
Six months after Pontiac’s G6 sedan debuted on The Oprah Winfrey Show, a gift to 276 audience members, General Motors wanted consumers to meet G6 in person. So Pontiac shifted to the smallest screen of all: cell phones.
The premise of the Catch a G6 sweepstakes was simple: Consumers sought out a G6, took its photo with a camera phone, then sent the photo for a shot at $1 million in a random draw.
“We wanted to break through the clutter of the road,” says Pontiac Marketing Director Mark-Hans Richer. “Just the idea of looking for a G6 would get people’s attention.”
Pontiac wanted a high-tech halo for G6, and camera phones were the chic new toy among Pontiac’s target audience of affluent, tech-savvy adults.
“It automatically put us in a better demographic,” Richer says. Poised at the front edge of camera-phone adoption, Pontiac supported the two-week sweeps conservatively: mostly radio, a little spot TV, some print. But no dealership P-O-P: “We wanted it more viral, with stealth,” he says.
Pontiac and agency Digitas did create a Web site with events where G6 would appear, a dealer locator, and a “field guide” to help treasure hunters recognize the G6. (Visitors couldn’t enter the sweeps online, though.)
Pontiac had some 40,000 G6s on the street, plus stock on 3,000 dealer lots around the country. Rather than wait for a drive by, a lot of consumers headed straight for a dealership.
“Dealers suddenly had a lot of people coming to the lot, so they started putting the G6 out front to make it more noticeable,” says Victor Lee, VP-director of Digitas’ promotions group. “That got even more traffic.”
Pontiac’s first goal was to build exposure; dealer traffic came second.
“We didn’t explicitly tell consumers to go to dealerships, because the fun part was just looking for the car everywhere,” Richer says.
Boston-based Digitas helped brief dealers and customer-service center reps so they wouldn’t be caught off-guard when consumers began clicking away. “Jumping into a tech-driven program, we wanted to deliver it accurately without hiccups,” Lee says.
Pontiac worked with some dealer groups to set auto show appearances; other dealers added their own radio live-remotes or brought a G6 to local events for even more exposure.
Richer knew the campaign was working when the pictures started rolling in. “They were these great little slices of life from everywhere. Real people were out there, snapping away,” he says.
Pontiac fielded 18,500 entries in two weeks. The trickiest bit of execution was accommodating several wireless carriers. “We didn’t want to limit it to one carrier; we wanted everyone to be able to enter without error messages or bounce-backs,” Lee explains.
Answering an optional survey got entrants a free G6-themed ringtone. Pontiac learned that two-thirds of its participants had a “much better” opinion of the brand after the sweeps; that skewed even higher among younger men and higher-income households. (Fully 89% said it was their first wireless promo; 90% said they’d take part in wireless promos again.)
Web traffic jumped at Pontiac.com (up 425%) and its G6 page (up 354%), and Yahoo searches on the term “Pontiac G6” surged 151% in the campaign’s first week. The promotion’s dedicated site drew 232,000 visits.
Pontiac took qualitatative measurements, too. “How much did consumers go out of their way to participate?” Richer says. “We saw a good level of engagement in the pictures themselves — and I looked at each one.”
Richer wishes they had run the sweeps longer: Minimal media support meant a slow ramp up, but entries poured in toward the end and “could have tripled if we went another week or two. Live and learn,” he says.
Pontiac funneled entrants into its “rigorous” e-mail recontact program, but didn’t follow up via cell phone. “It didn’t feel appropriate to cold call them,” Richer says. “We got them to look at our product, and for auto makers, that’s the Holy Grail.”
— Betsy Spethmann
Best Viral Promotion
Gap Ambassador creates the perfect fit
Gap identified 100 women (ages 19-48) in 10 markets for its first ambassador program. The goal: Get women in Gap jeans via invitation-only parties.
“Women love to talk to other women about clothing,” says Julie Alonso, director of partnerships and events, Gap Brand. “We wanted to tap into that viral, authentic energy.”
An ambassador program (administered online while activated in person) engaged the ambassadors.
“We wanted to immerse them in the Gap brand,” says Amy Cotteleer, partner for experiential shop A Squared Group, which developed the viral program. Lured by jean pocket invitations, attendees met with Gap stylists over 60 days to find their perfect-fit Gap jeans. Some 3,000 guests attended and received a free pair of jeans (a surprise for partygoers) and a Gap purse filled with goodies and premiums.
Gap reported 97% redemption of 3,000 discount cards given to attendees and 20% redemption of 30,000 discount cards for friends and family. Redemption is ongoing for Gap’s Ambassador Membership Card. Since the program’s inception last summer, Gap has reported 577% redemption of the 25% off card.
— Amy Johannes
Best Trial/Recruitment
Pontiac Solstice early order program leveraged its star power
Surely you’ve seen it by now: Pontiac debuted its Solstice roadster on The Apprentice with an early-order promotion that sold 1,000 cars in 41 minutes and depleted its entire 2005 production in 10 days. The campaign won Pontiac and agency Digitas a PRO Award in October and PMA’s Super Reggie in March.
The tie-in worked because Pontiac collaborated with Apprentice producers on contestants’ tasks: Create a brochure touting Solstice early order. “The brochure was a legitimate link that could bring viewers to dealerships the next day,” says Pontiac Marketing Director Mark-Hans Richer.
A November taping allowed time to produce the brochure before the April airing. Pontiac’s team gathered in a local bar to watch the show, with a laptop tracking site traffic over the hour. Traffic “spiked obscenely when we dropped the early-order ad,” Richer recalls. When early orders began, “the servers melted out. It was a 10-day promotion that turned into a 41-minute promotion.”
Pontiac keeps a multi-month waiting list — evidence that Solstice is still rising.
— Betsy Spethmann
Best Loyalty-Building
Yahoo! Emoti-Contest gets face time
When the in-house marketing team sat down last year to convert Yahoo loyalists to the company’s upgraded instant-messaging service, Messenger 7.0, it wanted those users to help sell the program’s personalization features.
“When we give our users a chance to impact a program, it’s incredibly engaging,” says Sean Florio, Yahoo’s director of buzz marketing.
The team created a promotion that invited users to create new “emoticons.” These animated smiley faces are a shorthand among IMers (those who instant-message). In April 2005, Yahoo IMers nominated new emoticons by sending a picture of themselves portraying its emotion. Twenty were selected from more than 84,000 suggestions (more than 5,000 came with photos) for a vote-off.
“Nominees all reflected the culture of instant messaging,” says Laura Campbell, marketing manager for Yahoo. One month later, Yahoo let the world pick a winner. The contest microsite received more than 4 million page views and more than 600,000 Yahoo users cast votes for their favorite. Now that is something to smile about!
— Kathleen M. Joyce
Best Consumer Web Site
Cadillac Under 5 showed power created in split seconds
To tout its V-Series’ ability to top 60 mph in five-seconds, Cadillac challenged film buffs to cut five-second films. TV spots, posters, a shout-out at the Sundance Film Festival and a tie-in to the film Be Cool drew entrants online. Aspiring directors had 12 days to cut the films.
“We wanted consumers to feel what the idea of under five seconds really means versus us telling them,” says Arc Worldwide VP-Creative Director Steve Slivka.
Arc had the film’s cast host CadillacUnder5.com, detail contest rules and judge entries. A viral component put some five-second films created by Arc on the site as pass alongs.
The Web drew more than 2.5 million page views and 2,658 films were uploaded for judging. Unique visitors to Cadillac.com soared 358% over the previous year. Cadillac also received a 45% increase (43,000) in requests for the dealer locations and a 25% increase in sales for the V-Series in the four months post-promotion.
The winner received a 2005 Cadillac CTS-V and the film showcased in a Cadillac TV spot.
“Cadillac continues to reap rewards,” Slivka says.
— Andrew Scott
Best Business Web Site
Heineken USA brings the night to virtual life for sales reps
Product and promotion updates, order forms and more created a logistic quagmire for Heineken USA’s sales team. That was until Ryan Partnership ushered them into sleek online digs via portal HUSA Square.
A centralized, interactive location for all sales and marketing materials, the b-to-b site borrowed an urban theme for field sales reps and distribution partners.
“We wanted them to want to go to this tool to find the relevant info,” says Richard Coppola, VP-creative director, Ryan Partnership, Wilton, CT.
Users get the latest on product launches, packaging and promotional events; a tool kit to download high-res art; an ad section with current campaigns; details on the entire year’s marketing activities; media detailed on a quarterly basis and links to all of Heineken USA’s consumer Web sites. A roof-top bar area offers a place to view products and marketing materials in their “natural environment.”
Some 85% of HUSA reps used the beta portal. They were so happy with it, a national rollout to the distributor network is planned. — Patricia Odell
Best Use of Blogs/Podcasts
Cooper Tires Utimate Bowl Tour blog buzzed
Cooper Tire, presenting sponsor of ESPN’s Thursday Night Football, wanted to up the ante of its College Bowl sweepstakes, while building relevance with tech-smart fans. Partner ESPN scored by following sweeps winners and channeling their experiences into a blog.
The lucky sweepstakes winner flew to the games on a private jet with three friends. Their adventures — pictures and all — at five Bowl games lived on via ESPN’s ultimatebowltour.com, with cross-promotion on Cooper’s site. TV spots and print ads supported.
“We wanted to offer [Cooper Tire] a chance to engage fans 24/7,” says Fred Bucher, VP-co-marketing, ESPN ABC Sports customer marketing and sales.
More than 11,000 unique visitors followed the blog, spending an average three minutes and 17 seconds reading the daily postings.
The blog reinforced awareness and created excitement for the tire brand among fans. It also gave Cooper Tires exposure beyond the annual sweeps by showcasing the Bowl fan experience.
The promotion, which recently wrapped up its second year, “exceeded our expectation and is a great model to generate buzz,” Bucher says.
— Andrew Scott
Best Use of Search Engine
Apple Vacations maximized its visibility via smart SEM
When it comes to searching for a vacation or trip online, Apple Vacations made sure it’s at the top of the list.
“The idea was to bring Apple Vacation to the next level in online marketing,” says Larry Touhill, Apple Vacation’s e-commerce manager.
To lure users to AppleVacations.com, Refinery, a Hatboro, PA-based interactive agency and specialists in SEM, designed word search categories specific to consumers’ needs (think destinations and hotel names). And to help maximize its effort, Refinery targeted its messaging to specific departure cities in Apple Vacation’s nearly 40-market area, such as “Deals from Chicago.”
During its test, the agency also eliminated underperforming key works and placements. “It is all about capturing those eyeballs,’ says Erik Harbison, Refinery’s director of search engine marketing. “What is important in this case is a trusted brand…making sure when people are doing these searches they keep Apple top of mind.”
And for Apple Vacations, the effort paid off. It was its first search engine effort outside of traditional ad methods of print, radio and outdoor. The seven-week program exceeded its ROI metric by more than 400%. The paid search program regularly performs about 200% above the company’s break-even ROI.
— Amy Johannes
Best E-mail Marketing
Toys R Us online coupon campaign gave Santa a run
Pressured by Wal-Mart, Costco and other big-box retailers offline, as well as online toy purveyors like Amazon, Toys ‘R’ Us wanted traffic in its bricks-and-mortar venues for Christmas 2005 while creating a low-price buzz that answered the competition. The in-house marketing team created a low-cost e-mail collection and fulfillment strategy.
First, banners on targeted sites built registration at toysrusemail.com. An e-mail flagging the registration site was sent to 2 million members of online coupon portal Cool Savings. And bag stuffers for the program hit TRU stores starting Nov. 13.
New names and TRU loyalists got a “heads up” e-mail to build anticipation for a TRU e-mail per day for 12 solid days. Then, from Dec. 1, the offers began to flow — each good for that day only in any TRU store.
E-Centives managed security, preventing online posting or use outside the target market. Each recipient was only allowed to print coupons once per day, and his name was printed on each coupon.
Even so, response was over plan at 150,000 coupons redeemed. Inventory for some items thinned so quickly that offers were modified at the last-minute. With success like this, Geoffrey the Giraffe might make Rudolph lose sleep!
— Kathleen M. Joyce
Best Campaign Outside U.S.
Pepsi/Doritos make their mark with XBox 360 giveaways
The Xbox 360 was one of the most sought after gifts this past holiday season. What better prize to dangle before teens and young adults?
The promotion paired Pepsi-Cola Canada and Frito Lay Canada for an online contest called Be First to Play. It offered gamers the chance to win one Xbox 360 every hour during the contest period, which ran from Oct. 2 through Nov. 10, 2005. Each prize package included the gaming system, an Xbox game 3 and a “Party in a Box,” which included a variety of Xbox products and coupons for Pepsi and Doritos products. The total value of the prize pool was close to $300,000 (Canadian).
“It’s all about trying to drive volume by driving that repeat purchase,” says Katherine Tmeg, marketing manager, for Pepsi-QTG Canada.
To play, consumers bought specially marked Pepsi and Doritos products and registered codes online for that hour’s draw. The result: more than 1.6 million unique visits and more than 2.9 million sweeps entries. The average number of entries per hour was more than 3,000 with an average visit time of 11.2 minutes.
Two major goals of the promotion were to drive increased display distribution as well as gain more of the retail floor, says Kelly Crerar, senior VP-strategy, IC Group, Chicago and Winnepeg.
“Showing [retailers] what was expected in sales numbers gave [them] the comfort that if they had more product in stock they would sell it, Crerar says.
“This promotion really gave us something to go to our customers with and leverage that to get the huge displays and the sort of size displays we’re accustomed to having, say, during Super Bowl,” Tmeg says. “It generated a lot of buzz and excitement at the retail level and with consumers.”
Print, broadcast, Internet and in-store materials supported.
— Patricia Odell
For more details on these winning campaigns, and to read about the second- and third-place winners, please visit us online at promomagazine.com/awards/iaawards.
