Wise Builds Database With Annual Online Sweeps

Living up to its name, Wise Foods is following the wise old saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” when it comes to its sweepstakes strategy.

When Wise ran its first sweepstakes in 2009, offering free groceries and product, it added 37,000 opt-in email addresses to its database. Last year it ran the program again during the same time frame, Jan. 1—to capture all the Super Bowl chip eaters—through March 31. Another 20,000 addresses enriched the file. “The biggest chunk of our yearly database has come through this one promotion,” said Kevin Foltz, marketing manager for Wise Foods.

So this year, the company is doing another encore.

“We’ve had continuity over the last three years,” Foltz said. “The promotion builds upon itself. Consumers are familiar with it and have come to expect us to have it in place.”

The length of the program has varied a bit, but this year it is running for 90 days, tying to the celebration of Wise’s 90th birthday. The sweeps and instant-win game is simple and straightforward and is played at www.Wisesnacks.com/winit.

Game play begins as a supermarket conveyor belt moves along the screen displaying Wise’s variety of snack foods. The player clicks on one of the packages, which is then “scanned,” and the results appear. The first player during a randomly generated time period to “click” on the game is an instant winner.

Instant-win prizes include 90 (there’s that number again) first-prize $100 grocery gift cards; 90 second prizes of one case of Wise products, such as Honey BBQ Potato Chips, Puffed Cheez Doodles or All Natural Potato Chips. The grand prize is a $1,000 grocery gift card, with the redeeming retailer determined based on information from the winner’s entry form. Through a registration password requirement and daily play, Wise captures return visitors. Last year the average was 12 return visits per player, with just over 500 players registering each day.

Wise uses all its newfound data to bolster its “Wise Buys” database of 110,000 members who receive coupons through email and are encouraged to become Wise Facebook fans. The promotion is administered by Cohen-Friedberg Associates.

The sweeps is promoted on the Wise Website and Facebook page, on partner Coupons.com Web pages, through text messages and banner ads and via in-store displays and header cards.