Marketers spent $1.8 billion on games, contests and sweepstakes in 2003. That’s a lot of playtime—and for sweepstakes, a lot of game pieces to distribute. The most logical delivery vehicle is the product itself: an under-the-cap code for beverages; a tear-off card on French fry boxes; a code printed inside a candy wrapper or cereal box. A game piece can sway shoppers at the shelf. But what if your brand has no package? What if you’re promoting a movie, or airfare, or wireless phone service? And what if you want to reach new users who may not be browsing your brand in the first place? What if you want to drive dealership traffic, or target a tightly defined audience, or make a lot of noise to launch a new brand?
Marketers should consider three factors when choosing a delivery vehicle for game pieces, says Marc Wortsman, executive VP for sweeps expert Marden-Kane, Manhasset, NY.
First, decide what action is desired from consumers. An in-pack game piece will get consumers to open (and use) the product more quickly. “Once the package is opened, the clock is ticking and the product will be consumed,” Wortsman says. A card distributed at concerts or malls can drive consumers online; witness eBay’s Camp eBay, whose mobile tour showcases the auction Web site.
Second, measure feasibility: How much will adding game pieces disrupt manufacturing and distribution? “On-pack game pieces require packaging changes, and need very careful management from manufacturing until it’s on-shelf,” Wortsman says.
Last, consider cost. It’s expensive to disrupt factory production lines, or hire street teams to distribute game cards.
Given those three criteria, marketers have a wide range of delivery vehicles to reach their target consumers. Here are six of the most popular—and emerging—ways to get game pieces into consumers’ hands and a peek at what the competition might be doing.
Playground in Cyberspace
The Internet has created a playground for games, sweeps and contests that holds infinite possibilities. The medium is easy to access, cost efficient, brand specific, instantly tailored to players’ personal info at registration and promotions can be easily tweaked in real-time based on consumer response and feedback thanks to the latest technology.
Pepsi’s Aquafina water launched an online instant-win game in June giving away “Drink More Water” T-shirts every hour; a year’s supply of Aquafina a day; and a grand-prize trip to Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Registered players can either place an actual Aquafina label up to a computer screen or use a computer-generated game piece to instantly determine if they’ve won. Consumers can play the game up to eight times a day—coinciding with the brand message of drinking eight bottles of water a day. Game play wraps in September. Eprize handles.
“We’ve done a ton of promotions over the Internet, for example, we launched PepsiStuff.com in 2000 and it was one of the largest known Internet promotions—we had over 2 million participate,” says PepsiCo North America spokesperson Dave DeCecco. “If an online contest is done well you can reach a lot of people.”
Mini Discs Spin New Life into Fountain Cups
Mini CDs, tucked into drink cup lids, appeal to teens and tweens looking for their favorite stars and provide added value for customers at QSRs and movie theaters. Links included on the discs drive consumers to online games, sweeps and contests tailored exclusively to each musician.
Pizza chain Sbarro’s recent Britney Spears’ promotion gave customers could get mini CDs with songs from Britney’s latest album. A menu pops up when the CD is loaded with a link to a sweepstakes dangling the outfit worn in the Spears’ Me Against the Music music video, tickets to a Spears concert and a CD and video collection.
“This is a powerful mechanism to get sweepstakes out to consumers in a contextual way,” says Dawn Whaley, executive VP at LidRock, which produces the CDs. “When we integrate a game it complements the user’s experience.”
In a similar sweeps with singer/producer Pharrell Williams and KFC, consumers could win a private dinner with Williams in New York City.
Magazines as Matchmakers
Magazines are a somewhat undiscovered venue that can reach very specific or mass demographics. They are a great vehicle for driving retail and Web traffic and building files of e-mail addresses and demographic data.
Tanqueray Gin, using magazines for the first time to distribute game pieces, has tipped edecoder pieces in to the August issue of Travel & Leisure magazine, which reaches about 1 million subscribers. The pieces appear in front of a full-page ad promoting the game and a grand prize of five nights for five friends at St. Barts Luxury Villa, a private chef and a Beach Blanket Bingo Basket filled with sunglasses, towels, watched and Tanqueray branded apparel.
Players register at Tanqueray.com to hold their edecoders to the screen to see if they’ve won. Users can play once a day and if they tell up to three friends they get one additional entry during the play period. The tip ins are part of a summer-long promotion, managed by Farmington Hills, MI-based ePrize, that includes neckers with game pieces on 1 million bottles to drive Web traffic and increase sales at bars and liquor stores.
“Print advertising is an excellent vehicle for Tanqueray to significantly increase distribution of edecoders and build promotional visibility,” says Roberto Cruz, senior brand manager for Tanqueray.
Suppliers, noting the interest in game pieces compatible with magazines, are delivering new products.
Ameri-Sweeps.com has just launched Big Bucks, eye-catching bills that can be bound in to magazines. The bills, created in any denomination, use a serial number that can be matched at retail or online.
Also testing a new vehicle, Starz! hoped to drive subscriptions for its TV service with the television premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, by running a promotion using 30 million game pieces in People, Entertainment Weekly, US Weekly, STAR, Premiere, Time, Newsweek, Travel & Leisure, Good Housekeeping and Redbook. (Another 3 million were handed out at movie theaters). Readers found a scratch off card in front of a full-page ad that drove them to Starz.com. During the first two days of the promo, which ended June 30, Web traffic skyrocketed to 500,000 from its normal 100,000 per month, says Lauren Ruetz, director of media strategy for Starz!. In theater spots supported.
Gaming on the Run
What makes text-messaging games unique is the ability of the consumer to play them anywhere at any time, with the marketer capturing real-time data.
“By harnessing the power of text messaging, brands are increasing the number of people who initiate interaction and are instantly communicating individually with consumers on a mass scale,” says interactive marketing company Vibes President Jack Philbin.
For example, the U.S. Cellular Question of the Day promo allows fans watching White Sox games at U.S. Cellular Field or on TV to text the answer to a question displayed on the stadium’s Jumbotron. The answer prompts a series of trivia questions to pop up on their cell phone screen. For each correct answer, the text-messager gets a chance to win prizes that include White Sox tickets, merchandise and a chance to deliver the lineup card to home plate before a game.
Packing a Promo Punch
Innovative packaging can be an inevitable attention grabber at point of sale and another way to drive players online.
Campbell Soup Co. took a straightforward route for its SouperStar sweeps by manufacturing codes on soup cans to serve as game pieces. Kids can enter the codes at Mysoup.com for an instant-win shot at prizes. The fall 2003 SouperStar Fantasy had a quick turnaround—less than the typical six months’ lead time to change packaging—so Campbell used existing codes, with heavy ad and display support (since cans had no burst touting the sweeps). Lawyers vetted the plan to assure it complied with sweepstakes laws. This fall’s rendition (Campbell’s third), SouperStar Castle, awards one family a week in a U.K. castle. Ryan Partnership, Wilton, CT, handles.
Coca-Cola Co. eschewed in- or on-pack for an elaborate is-pack: It turned 100 Coke cans into cell phones for its Unexpected Summer sweeps. Winners use cans to call Coke’s prize center; a GPS device in the can lets Coke’s Prize Patrol track winners, then swoop in for surprise prize delivery. Some military bases worried briefly that spies could eavesdrop on classified conversation via cans.
Taking it to the Streets
Guerilla marketers are using street teams to deliver game pieces with a unique and memorable twist.
Participants of the summertime mobile Niños Activos Familias Sanas Tour (Active Kids Healthy Families Tour), sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have to play a little basketball or soccer, jump rope, engage in a game of hopscotch or twirl a hula hoop around their waists in a challenge area to receive giveaways.
“They feel part of something that goes beyond a free sample or premium,” says account executive Clara Carrier of Chicago-based Marketing Werks, which handles the tour that targets Hispanic/Latino parents and kids.
“Once they complete the challenge area they are awarded with collateral materials, magnets, freebees or beach balls,” she adds.
And AOL for Broadband street teams are taking a local approach when putting instant-win scan game pieces into the hands of consumers in Cleveland, Philadelphia and Seattle this summer as part of an immersion campaign.
The brand feels that consumers misunderstand its service and wants to show that it is in touch with them. That’s why the prizes have a local flavor, such as trips to the Jersey Shore in Philadelphia, tickets to Indians games in Cleveland and ice cream in all three markets. The street teams also share information about upcoming AOL for Broadband events, exhibits and promotions.
“We don’t want people thinking AOL is this big behemoth that only pays attention to people on the cutting-edge of technology,” says Hope Berschler, director of brand promotion for Dulles, VA-based AOL. “We want to make sure that whatever way you’re connecting, AOL for Broadband enhances the online experience.”
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