Another Way Prize Management is delighted to be joining the IPM community. Specialising in Prize Management, Brand Experiences and Incentives, Another Way is passionate about connecting brands and consumers on a more meaningful level.

Established during the pandemic specifically to cater for the heightened requirement for campaigns to be even more effective and to connect with consumers on a deeper level, Another Way focuses on delivering unique prize and brand experiences through on pack, digital and experience led campaigns. Working with brands and agencies alike they have built up an impressive list of clients to date, with Airbnb, Ocado, Britvic and Sony Pictures among them.

Andrew Rae, Founder of Another Way Prize Management and an ex IPM MD explains that ‘the world of promotional marketing has been through many changes and weathered many storms over the past decade and The IPM has been a constant throughout that. The incredible agencies that form the IPM family are continuously creating and diversifying and keeping the industry fresh and challenging, and it’s wonderful to be included in that fold. We look forward to working with other IPM members to help further our very unique discipline in the overall marketing mix.’

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Prize Management specialists Black Tomato Agency have recently added to their team with the appointment of Molly Harrison as a Prize Executive in the London Office and Charlie Rooney as Business Development Manager in the Manchester office.

Looking to bring much needed support off the back of new account wins for the agency, these appointments will bolster the team, who have claimed Gold, Silver and Bronze in the Prize, Incentive and Reward category at the IPM COGS Awards (an industry first), in 2016 and 2017.

Charlie Rooney will be driving all new business and comes the added benefit of having worked at Black Tomato previously. Black Tomato Agency offer a range of services to agencies and brands alike, from prize management to content creation, group incentives and strategy, an immediate understanding of client requirements and delivering to meet those needs is more important than ever.

Molly Harrison joins the Promotions Team with an events management background which enables her to immediately support the group incentive side of the business.

Andrew Rae, Head of Promotional Marketing at Black Tomato Agency said; “Traditional prize management has evolved so rapidly in the past few years, as has the portfolio of services that we offer, that we need the right team to deliver against our changing client needs.”

These most recent hires are a sign of the agency’s continuing drive to ‘create remarkable experiences that inspire.’

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Prize packages need to be relevant to brands and consumers, says Justine Clement of The Happy Prize Company

A typical FMCG brand’s customer retention strategy relies upon ‘buying’ loyalty with rewards, rebates and discounts.

However, in this new era of digital-based competition and customer control, customers are increasingly buying products because of a brand’s relevance to their values and needs in any given moment. So what does this mean for the future of promotional marketing?

In a rapidly evolving world, where the global marketplace is both setting the agenda and simultaneously struggling to keep up with the pace of changing behaviour, relevance and purpose are becoming the No.1 criteria from the customer’s perspective.

A (big) shift is required

Broadly speaking, what citizens crave is identity and purpose in a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world.

Brands that try to use a bolt-on approach to ethics in an insincere or tokenistic way in this new environment just won’t stand the test of time. It’s both a fascinating and yet a hugely stressful topic for those in the industry, simply because the solutions and the parameters shift almost daily.

Consider this quote, for example:

“Public expectations of your company have never been greater. Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose… [customers] are demanding that companies exercise leadership on a broader range of issues. Companies must ask themselves: What role do we play in the community?” Larry Fink, CEO, Black Rock

What we’re really talking about is authenticity. Yet committing to our values is actually pretty hard work because the nature of being human means we’re flawed. We all know we need to do better, but we get sidelined and often opt for the short-term, quick fix approach.

The opportunity

People’s attention spans have become more and more limited. Negative news is digested 24/7 and it’s not good for our wellbeing.

Many people now can feel like they’re losing themselves, caught up in a cycle of keeping up. They find themselves getting heavily addicted to things that take them away from the stress, alleviate the symptoms and help them forget their troubles.

So without sounding mercenary, that’s a good opportunity, isn’t it? And if we can marry authenticity with opportunity, we’re onto something.

When it comes to prize promotions, in a world that has shifted dramatically in the past few years, what’s going to help brands connect when it comes to purpose and relevance?

Up until now, options have broadly consisted of cash, vouchers, holidays, cars, experiences and even farms.

Winning cash is undoubtedly appealing, but what has always worked on a more intrinsically motivating level is connecting brand to customer using unique experiences, either as incentives to purchase or to stand out on shelf.

These must tie in with the brand’s ethos and audience appeal, be relevant, professionally delivered, high quality and align with the theme of the campaign itself. Yet in this new era of heightened consumer awareness, offering experiences that help people navigate and deal with an altogether different kind of life could be what’s required.

Just consider; many of us may still be active at 102! It’s a scary thought to some, but with personalised medicine and smart lifestyle choices, it’s a realistic and potentially exciting one, too.

Tapping into this idea through promotional marketing, it’s time see more brands designing prizes that affirm life, purpose and values beyond ego.

Experiences for living. Ones that enhance people’s lives and that reaffirm a brand’s ethos of caring for their customers and the world around them. Ones that demonstrate brands really do give a damn, and that can be the seeds of stories remembered for life.

Holidays and breaks are incredibly generous prizes. They create joy and spread happiness. But what if we took this one stage further and combined them with the potential to change someone’s life?

Brands on board

PepsiCo’s Naked Juice brand recently offered a series of wellbeing experiences that included a yoga retreat on the Isle of Wight. One of the winners told PepsiCo

“Winning this Yoga with Awareness retreat with Naked has made me extremely excited about how potentially life-changing this experience could be for me at this point in my life… The whole experience has given me a new thirst for life and I shall be eternally grateful to Naked.”

Today’s world provides an invitation to discuss something just a little bit different – an opportunity for a deeper connection to purpose and beyond.

While there are brands that change people’s day, there are many, too, who can change lives. There are some incredible examples of the good that can be achieved with on-pack campaigns that tap into more life-affirming concepts.

Persil’s “Dirt is Good” campaign is one. It encouraged kids to get out and get dirty doing activities in nature to stimulate their minds and get them being more active (and it encouraged parents to let them!).

Johnny Walker’s “Joy Will Take You further” was based on insights which showed how success is viewed by people today. It brought to life the idea that joy can be a catalyst to the progress we seek in our lives. The campaign achieved a reach of 50 countries and over 270 million consumers around the world in the first weeks of launch.

McVitie’s recently moved into the purpose arena too, with its ‘Sweeter Together’ campaign, focusing on the issue of loneliness.

Examples like this showcase the potential power mainstream brands have when it comes to creating positive shifts in behaviour.

Brands and mainstream media can undoubtedly achieve powerful, positive shifts in behaviour and create significant legacies. And if people are going to live long, fulfilling and adventurous lives in a world that’s fit for purpose, it’s incumbent on brands to get involved.

So what does your brand want? To be remembered for a day – or for life?

Justine Clement has created and managed many award-winning prize promotions in her 18-year career in the industry. Former CEO of Unmissable, she is now founder of creative prize management agency, The Happy Prize Company. Working with progressive brands in the UK and Europe, the company have handled strategy and prize management for many high-profile on-pack campaigns in recent years. A longer version of this article can be found on the company’s website.

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There’s been a lot of negative comment about the Winning Moments mechanic now being used in many prize promotions. But is the problem with the mechanic, or how promotions are being explained to consumers, asks Steve Berry of Emirat

Following some negative press about the overall odds of winning and the number of actual winners in some recent prize promotions, frozen food company McCain has become the latest brand to announce that they won’t be running any more Winning Moments-style prize promotions in the future.

The complaints about Winning Moments, and the strategic reaction by many promoters to them, lead many to ask if this reflects how all consumers feel. Is everyone losing faith in Winning Moments? I would argue not.

The average consumer would more than likely take a promotion in the spirit it was created – as a bit of fun. I am certain that McCain in no way set out to do anything other than inspire and delight their consumers with a fun and attractive promotion.

I don’t, in truth, know the facts – I didn’t work on this promotion – but I would guess McCain, working within a set budget, used fixed fee or promotional insurance to stretch that budget and provide the opportunity to win as many prizes as possible. Their intent ultimately would have been to make it more exciting, more appealing and to get a better response.

Compliance with the CAP Code

If this promotion was set up and implemented in accordance with the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) codes, the rules which govern all marketing activity in the UK, which I imagine it was, then all the prizes which the public were told could be won were in fact available to be won.

Therefore, the fact remains, had more people played, more prizes would have been won.

Let’s not forget, the whole idea of a promotion is as an enticement to purchase, the end goal being that you purchase the product, not enter a promotion. Furthermore, not all promotions guarantee a reward in exchange for this purchase, and they are not intended to. It’s a bonus, an add-on, a supplement to the product which is, most importantly, what you are actually buying!

The bag of chips cost no more than usual, therefore it hasn’t cost anything to enter this promotion. What then is there to feel disgruntled about? It’s not like buying a lottery ticket where you are actually paying to enter a competition. But again, with this too, you are only given a chance to win and no guarantees are given.

So why then, in the context of a promotion, which you are not paying to enter, does the idea that someone ‘could’ win seem to be an alienating concept all of a sudden?

I have read a lot of criticism and cries for promotional prizes to be ‘guaranteed’; but before promoters react, I would ask that they put this into context. While a promotion might guarantee prizes and therefore winners, it doesn’t dictate any differential in the ultimate appeal or number of participants that engage in a promotion. More winners, yes. More entries? Sadly, no.

Having a small number of guaranteed prizes can actually harm your promotion and objectives. This is due to the fact that the average consumer will perceive that, with only a few prizes to be won, they have very little chance of winning and so won’t bother to take part.

Worse still, they may not even buy the product, or in the frequency you are looking for, which is the whole reasoning for running the promotion in the first place!

The prizes are then only won by those that bother to take part, who perhaps aren’t the target audience that the promotion is aimed at.

I have seen for myself the same pool of participants winning prizes repeatedly during a promotion and in lots of cases, across a variety of promotions. These people are naturally the first to criticise a promotion with longer odds and no guaranteed winners because, frankly, they aren’t winning.

Your average consumer probably wouldn’t have the same view and it’s a shame for any brand to shy away from a Winning Moments promotion because of the view of a minority.

Winning Moments – indeed, all prize promotions with a ‘chance’ element – have their benefits. They allow for more inspiring and exciting promotions, which we all know have a far greater marketing impact, reach and ROI than your average free prize draw. They can help facilitate the creative, fun and fabulous promotions that we love to see on the shelves, by making them affordable and exciting at the same time. I don’t want to see promotional marketing like this disappear, especially when it really doesn’t have to.

In all fairness, though, there are perhaps two sides to this argument. You could argue that if you usually buy a different brand and made a buying choice solely based on the ‘chance’ to win something, do you deserve better odds? Maybe a guaranteed reward? I can certainly see the point to this argument.

Striking a happy medium

Perhaps, then, there has to be a balance with these things, a way to offer a fantastic promotion and keep the odds reasonable; by being just that.

Here, in my humble opinion, is how to go about striking that balance:

• Create a good ratio of packs to wins – 100m packs and a few prizes that ‘could’ be won isn’t a good ratio to go on. Decide what would be reasonable for your customers, what you’d expect to see as a consumer and go with that.
• Guarantee some of the prizes – put aside some of the budget to ensure you have winners.
• Use the other part of the budget to cover additional prizes and have ‘winning opportunities’. This will allow for the budget to go further and the promotion be as exciting as you’d like it to be!
• Mop Up – have a prize draw after the close of the promotion to compensate for late entries and entrants who’ve entered during the promotion and not won.
• Limit the number of winning individuals – so that the same people don’t get all the prizes and it’s fair for everyone.
• Don’t scrimp! The promotional website shouldn’t cost more than the promotional prizes! If it does, you probably need to look at it again.
• Be upfront. If you’re clear about the prizes and the odds, the choice for consumers is easy – buy and take part or don’t. It’s not about misleading anyone, ever!
• Choose your words carefully. Transparency is key; ‘’to be won’’ isn’t the same as ‘’could be won’’. Make sure you’re using language that can’t be misunderstood.

Steve Berry is managing director of fixed fee and promotional risk management company EMIRAT.

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Promomarketing.info’s ‘My Life in Promotions’ feature shines a spotlight on the people who make the promotional marketing industry work so well – the heroes of the promotional world.

On a regular basis, we turn the spotlight onto people working in all sectors of our industry and at all levels – whether at brand owners, agencies or service providers. We’ll be finding out what makes them tick, what makes them get up and go to work every day and what their plans are for the future…

This week’s subject is Michael Chambers, Director of prize management company, Cloud Nine

Name: Michael Chambers

Age: 38

Gender: Male            

Company name: Cloud Nine Incentives

What does the company do? Cloud Nine provide exceptional travel incentives, prize fulfilment services and asset management.  We work with marketing and PR agencies, brands directly and media owners.

Position within company: Director

How long have you worked for this company?

Cloud Nine was created in 2011 so we have had an exciting six years where we have been growing year on year.

How long have you worked in promotional marketing?

I started working in the industry in 1996, when I was 17.  Back when the IPM was the ISP, promomarketing.info was Sales Promotion Magazine and was delivered to the office each month, and when every quote for clients and piece of correspondence was either faxed or posted.

How did you get your start in promotional marketing?

At the tender age of 17, I got my big break as a YTS (Youth Training Scheme, a form of apprenticeship) at a local company called Protravel who created holidays for competition prizes. Over the next few years, I progressed through the company to become General Manager.

What’s an average day at Cloud Nine like?

First thing, the team get together to discuss what live briefs need working on and when for.  Once that’s done, a lot of the day is spent ensuring we answer them as creatively as possible.  It’s hugely important to give clients the best chance of winning a pitch, or giving an edge over a competitor on the supermarket shelves.

We also have to be reactive throughout the day with tight deadlines, urgent briefs or some lastminute ideas for a client en route to a meeting.

Finally, updates with the travel and operations team are conducted.

And probably too much coffee!

What has been your greatest achievement at your current company?

Working with the world’s leading brands and agencies provides a sense of achievement on a daily basis.  Especially if you’re in a pitch situation and you win; and, down to hard work and experience, wins are more common than losses.

However, as cheesy as this may sound, my greatest achievement so far is growing Cloud Nine into something I’m proud of, looking after clients we’ve had from our inception, and working alongside a brilliant team of people that truly believe in what we stand for, and that what we do is the best out there.

What has been your greatest challenge?

Launching Cloud Nine at the tail end of the financial crisis was tough, but if we hadn’t done it then, we never would have.

We knew with our experience, passion and knowledge of the industry that we could help agencies and brands provide something special with real added value and excellent service.

However, the real challenge was doing this with three kids under seven; they’ve been there throughout, and I’ve have become very good at “juggling”!

How do you see the promotions industry changing in the next five years?

In terms of what we do, the world’s becoming more accessible in some respects, so depending on the demographic, the prize envelopes can be pushed. However, as it’s an uncertain time for lots of people, there may be a revival of more traditional prizes, ensuring that audiences aren’t missing out on day to day “luxuries” i.e. holidays.

Across the board, with new technology advancing so quickly, brands are going to be able to gain even more insight into their audience and what they like.  Mechanics will become more tailored to the audience and promotions and rewards could become segmented/tailored to specific areas of an audience.

If you had a time machine and you could go back and talk to your younger self, what would be your three key pieces of advice?

1. Regardless of position, make sure you continue to do the elements of your job that made you love it in the first place.
2. Rarely is something as bad as you expect it to be; tackle it head on and get it out of the way.
3. Get out of the office, even if it’s for a ten-minute walk. It changes everything (well your view on it at least).

What do you do outside work?

I spend lots of quality time standing on the side lines of football matches with my seven and four-year-old. We also have a one-year old daughter too, so weekends are pretty busy! To keep fit and to get time to think, I cycle frequently, and do a spot of racing.

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Sarah Burns of Prizeology has some words of wisdom on how to run prize promotions campaigns on social media that comply with UK law and the CAP Code

I love social media. I love social media because it enriches what leisure time I have in oh so many ways, especially when it comes to watching skateboarding dogs; but also because it’s brilliant for prize promotions, which is what I fill my working days with.

YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest – they all have their merits and indeed their quirks, but I like these platforms because, unless you don’t understand how the channel works and get the mechanic completely wrong, the audience is almost always engaged and responsive.

Also, because these are still new and evolving spaces, promoters can be innovative – although, of course, they can’t make up their own rules, because each platform has its own acceptable use policies and guidelines for promotions.

Facebook, for instance, insists prize draws must be run through an app within Facebook or a business page, not a personal profile, while Instagram says you mustn’t ask people to tag themselves in photos if they aren’t actually in the pic. A competition in which the most retweets wins breaches Twitter guidelines and you can’t permit multiple entries to a Pinterest promotion or ask entrants to re-pin a specific image.

If you don’t follow these platform guidelines for promotions your account or – much worse – your client’s account is at risk of being shut down. It goes without saying that I don’t want one of the primary ways in which my client engages with its customers to be blocked.

I see it as my responsibility because my company makes full use of our clients’ business logins to monitor their social media campaigns. We answer queries, review the stats and check the promotion is being seen. Facebook’s recent algorithm change now means giveaways, for instance, might not always appear organically in feeds and brands will need to pay to boost their posts in order to gain visibility, so that presents a new challenge.

In addition to these site-specific idiosyncrasies, online prize promotions must abide by the regulations and laws of the land. Like all non-broadcast promotional marketing in the UK, social media prize draws are regulated by the CAP Code (the self-regulatory code which governs advertising and marketing in the UK), so they must have clear terms and conditions. These can be abridged – Twitter is still a tight squeeze although it’s slightly easier now there are 280 characters to play with – but the full and frank version should never be more than a single click away. If your promotion is global, take care, because different countries have different rules and what’s legal here isn’t necessarily legal elsewhere.

Whatever platform you use, you have to be able to pull all the entry data if you’re asked for it and prove that your prizes have been awarded fairly, so you need an app or program for doing this. On platforms like Twitter and Instagram, as well as asking entrants to use a specific hashtag, get them to tag your brand, as this helps you sort people who have actively entered your prize draw from those who have coincidentally used the same hashtag.

You also need a verification process to ensure entrants are who they claim to be, own the content they’ve entered and haven’t broken any other terms and conditions.

If you rely on notifying your winners by naming them in a Facebook post or tagging them on Instagram, you can’t guarantee they’ll see that post or, if they do, it might be months later, by which time you’ll have given the prize to someone else. People really do set up fake accounts simply to claim prizes, so always contact winners privately. On Twitter, for example, this may mean asking them to follow you so you can direct-message them.

Best practice on social media means running effective but compliant promotions. I would be mortified if a consumer complained to the ASA about a promotion I had run. But more than that, non-compliance, including by social media influencers who fail to make the correct disclosures of any commercial relationship with the brands they are promoting, undermines consumer trust and damages the promotional marketing industry as a whole, so following platform guidelines and adhering to the law benefits us all.

I am out to spread the love, because although I do love social media, I also love compliance too – and I don’t care who knows it!

Sarah Burns is Founder of Prizeology, a consultancy specialising in the management and implementation of all aspects of prize promotions, on both strategic and tactical levels. Prizeology is one of the Headline Sponsors of Connect 2018, the IPM’s Members Networking Event which is taking place on Wednesday 31st January. For more information about Connect 2018, see the IPM website.

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Great marketing campaigns don’t happen without clients willing to risk going out on a limb, says Andrew Rae of The Black Tomato Agency

My cousin and I share a long running joke. Whenever we see an off-the-wall advertising campaign, hear the ludicrous name of a new band or are told the plot line to a forthcoming farfetched film, we look at each other and say: “Imagine the faces in the presentation when this was pitched!”

For example, imagine the convincing and coercing you would have to do to get ‘Snakes on a Plane’ off the ground…

Or, for an example from the advertising world, imagine ad agency VCCP’s pitch to the Compare the Market marketing team for the ‘Compare the Meerkat’ TV campaign. TV ads featuring an aristocratic Russian meerkat called Aleksandr Orlov, annoyed because people were visiting their site – www.comparethemeerkat.com – when they were really looking for car insurance?

Yet Aleksandr and his family and friends have become the backbone of one of the most successful marketing campaigns in the financial services sector ever – and the promotional element has seen more than a million meerkat toys handed out to people as rewards for taking out a range of Compare the Market insurance products.

The Meerkat campaign launched in 2009; within a very short period of time, comparethemarket.com was ranked as the fourth most visited insurance website in the UK, up from 16th in January 2008, while the site’s overall sales doubled. By 2010 the site had increased its market share by 76%, where competitors’ share had fallen by up to 30% over the same period. 700,000 Facebook fans, 22,000 followers on Twitter, Coronation Street sponsorship and rumoured record deals later it is widely regarded as one of the most successful campaigns of the last 10 years.

But can you imagine the faces in the presentation when this was pitched?

VCCP has won huge numbers of industry awards for the Meerkats; but in reality should we be thanking someone else for giving us Orlov? I think we should. Hats off to the client.

To have the absolute vision, the trust in a supplier, the confidence, the ‘arm-chancery’ to throw caution to the wind and completely commit to someone’s else’s wild creativity is where the real credit should lie.

Anybody who, like us, has won their fair share of industry awards will be very, very aware that the real winners are the clients. They are the ones who allowed us the free reign to be creative, to suggest untried techniques, to do what we do best.

We work with some of the biggest names in their industry sectors; it is widely believed that the larger the brand, the more risk adverse they are and the harder it is to guide them out of their comfort zone. But that is exactly what our role as agencies and suppliers should be – to convince our clients that we can help them by doing something unique and different and that they should trust our ideas.

Think back 11 years to 2007. A TV ad starts with a close-up of a gorilla. Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” plays in the background. The camera pulls back to reveal the gorilla is sitting in a music studio. It sniffs. It rolls its neck, loosens its shoulders… And then it starts drumming.

It is hard to forget the impact that the Cadbury’s Gorilla ad had in 2007. But just imagine that client pitch. Created to convey the message that “all communications should be as effortlessly enjoyable as eating the bar itself,” the ad was the centrepiece of a £6.2 million campaign. And in 2016, it was voted the UK’s favourite ad of all time in a poll conducted by Campaign magazine.

This is quite possibly the best example of a brand taking a massive (albeit calculated) leap outside of its comfort zone.

But did it change behaviour, and was it a success?

The commercial was uploaded to video sharing website YouTube shortly after it first aired, and was viewed over 500,000 times in the first week. As of November 2007, it has been viewed over six million times. Cadbury reported that sales of Dairy Milk had increased by 9%. A YouGov poll showed that 20% more people looked favourably on the brand in the period after the advert’s general release than in the previous period. It won a host of awards, including Pica d’Or for Film 2007, the Grand Cristal at Festival de la Publicité de Méribel and Gold at the British Television Advertising Awards 2008.

Wonderbra even created their own version of the film, with the Cadbury slogan, “A glass and half full of joy,” being replaced with “Two cups full of joy.”

To use a phrase that has now become common parlance, the point I am making is ‘simples’. Creative campaigns are nothing without the progressive attitude and confidence of our clients. Confidence in a) being bold and setting themselves apart from their competition and b) confidence in their suppliers to make it happen.

So next time you see the results from a prestigious industry awards scheme – like the IPM Awards – or you see a brillant piece of creative marketing, make sure you credit the clients as well as the people who put the campaigns together. They’re the ones whom deserve the applause, because they’re the ones who put their brands on the line.

Without courageous clients, our greatest ideas will always remain just that – ideas.

Andrew Rae is Head of Promotional Marketing at the prize and rewards specialist The Black Tomato Agency, which in 2017 won Gold, Silver and Bronze in the Prize, Reward and Incentive category of the IPM COGS Awards for the second year running. The Black Tomato Agency creates unique, brand-relevant travel incentives and reward programmes around the world, tailored precisely to the client’s audience and specific needs to obtain maximum ROI.

The Black Tomato Agency is a member of the Institute of Promotional Marketing, and Andrew Rae was elected to the IPM’s Board in December 2017.

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Kelloggs-owned savoury snack brand Pringles is running a promotion offering consumers the chance to win £300 in free flights to European destinations every hour, by posting pictures of themselves taking a bite of a Pringles chip to social media.

The promotion opens on February 1^st and closes on April 16^th 2018. There will be one winner drawn at random every hour from 11.00am to 7.00pm, with a final ‘mop-up’ draw for entries received after the closing date and before the end of July. There will be 601 prizes awarded in total, consisting of £300 towards a return direct flight to a European destination for one person. Winners will be able to put the £300 towards a more expensive flight and pay the excess, but may be charged a handling fee by the prize management agency working on the promotion.

To enter, UK and Republic of Ireland consumers (aged 18+) have to take a picture of themselves taking a bite of a Pringles chip and then share it via either Facebook (posting it to the Pringles UK Facebook page), Instagram or Twitter. If they use Instagram or Twitter, they have to include the hashtag #PringlesTakeaBite.

Consumers are restricted to entering once per person per day and can only win one prize during the promotion.

Winners will be informed via Direct Message on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter within seven days of the hourly draw taking place. They will then have seven days to respond, or the prize will be re-awarded.

Winners will be notified via Direct Message on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter within 7 days of the hourly window and will be required to provide personal details to progress with prize fulfilment.

There is a No Purchase Necessary entry route for residents of Northern Ireland, while those from the Republic of Ireland whose names are drawn will have to answer a tie-break question correctly in order to be deemed a winner. This is because both Northern Ireland and the ROI have slightly different laws governing prize draws to the UK (and to each other).

Prize management and fulfilment is being handled for Pringles by Cloud Nine Incentives, which is a member of the Institute of Promotional Marketing.

The post Pringles runs European flights on-pack promo appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

For brands and agencies today, the opportunities offered by prize promotions and incentives are truly greater than ever before, says Chris Pearson of Element London

Prize promotions are as old as the hills. From cereal-box toys to Caribbean holidays, the idea of a brand driving sales and engagement through prizes and rewards has been around for decades. However, while prize promotions and competitions are a regular component of annual marketing budgets for many FMCG brands, they have traditionally been a ‘bridesmaid’, playing a supporting role to above-the-line advertising campaigns and creative concepts. From social media giveaways to retailer overlays, prize-led activations reliably drive sales, engagement and loyalty among key target markets without necessarily being a core focus in themselves.

But that may be changing. Prize activity has been at the very forefront of Coca-Cola’s 2017 positioning across Europe, with their ‘Win a Dream Holiday’ competition taking the place of ‘Share a Coke’ across bottles throughout the summer, supported by considerable above-the-line marketing spend. Recent promotions from brands including Weetabix, Carling and Danone have taken similarly prominent roles in advertising creative.

The profile of such promotions is further multiplied by greater press coverage and, increasingly, by greater levels of attention and engagement on social media. Brands and agencies are rightly fearful of the backlash which can erupt on Facebook and Twitter when competitions are badly managed – either at the entry or fulfilment stage – but this is just one side of the coin. An innovative, original competition with aspirational prizes and an engaging entry mechanic can be great social content: fun, shareable and aesthetically attractive.

Spreading the word

While some of this social media sharing will be organic and spontaneous, there are also ways to maximise the social reach generated by competitions and promotions. Whether competitions are run on social media sites or via a dedicated promotional microsite, you can prompt consumers to share their entries on their social feeds, driving further traffic and engagement from their peers.

The entry mechanic has a vital role to play here. Asking consumers to enter via a ‘like’ for a Facebook post, or by inputting their email address on a microsite, has an appealing simplicity that is likely to drive high entry rates. But asking people to tag an Instagram photograph or upload a video can be much more valuable, in terms of creating interesting personalised content. Entry rates may be lower, but there’s the potential for your brand’s messaging to be shared and spread much more widely.

Crucially, however, the prize needs to be right. Whether it’s an on-trend destination, a hot ticket event, a quirky or unique activity, or even a bundle of designer goods, the prize needs to fit the brand’s target audience. It also needs to have the cultural cachet – by virtue of being fashionable or aspirational – to make people want to associate with it. If a person’s social media profile is the face they want to present to the world, your prize needs to fit with that face. As well as being something your target market wants, it must also be something they are happy being seen to want.

Creating content

One failsafe way to make sure your prize passes this test is by putting the choice in the hands of the consumer. From Nutella and Kleenex to Budweiser and Glenfiddich, we’ve worked on a range of promotions where winners have designed their own prizes. Ask entrants to describe their perfect day/weekend/holiday/birthday/summer – in words, pictures or video – and reward the winner by turning their entry into a reality.

In our experience, the entries make for fascinating reading. From touching stories submitted by people who want to make a dream come true for a family member, to hilariously weird and wonderful ideas about what constitutes the perfect holiday, a gallery of entries can constitute superbly entertaining content. The prizes we’ve organised for promotions of this kind range from month-long American road trips and Icelandic whale watching holidays to school trips, village fetes and even a wedding day!

In the case of winning entries, of course, the potential for social activity is huge. Having selected an interesting and engaging story to bring to life, a brand can use social media to document the whole prize experience. From the reaction on winning through to trip preparations, and finally the experience itself, why not harness the power of Facebook and Instagram to get the biggest possible reach for your prize budget? Written testimonials and photographs are great. If you can include a GoPro as part of the prize, and encourage winners to film a fun video diary, that’s even better.

Indeed, if you’re offering a prize with real novelty or entertainment value, it might even be worth enlisting a professional camera crew. Whether it’s a celebrity meet-and-greet, an adrenaline-fuelled action break or a wacky road trip adventure, a promotional video can often pay for itself. After all, we’re talking about genuine, unscripted footage of a delighted customer interacting with your brand while enjoying the experience of a lifetime. What better brand advertisement could there be?

Power and influence

With Instagram influencers and bloggers enjoying an ever-increasing profile and credibility as brand ambassadors, influencer marketing offers another interesting route to maximising the reach and visibility of your sales promotion. From fashion and food to tech and travel, if you’re offering an amazing experience for competition winners, why not reserve a space on the trip for a prominent blogger? Plenty of advance publicity while the promotion is running, live updates throughout the trip, and lots of interesting post-event content: it’s a win-win situation. Plus, with a well-matched influencer adding to the prestige and buzz around the prize experience you’re offering (particularly for youth focused brands), there’s no better way to drive engagement and excitement.

All of this can be summed up in three words: make it count. Whether it’s a limited edition product or a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a great prize promotion gives lucky customers something amazing, something to cherish and remember. So shout about it.

Chris Pearson is an Account Director at specialist prize and incentive agency Element London, which has over 30 years’ experience in delivering travel prizes, incentives, winner management and fulfilment to a range of global clients.

The post Prize Promotions: The Gift That Keeps On Giving appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

Prize sourcing and management company Prizeology has joined the National Trading Standards’ Friends Against Scams campaign, an initiative that aims to protect vulnerable people from falling victim to scams, including misleading and fake promotions, and Sarah Burns, Prizeology founder and Managing Director and a Board Director of UK marketing industry trade body, is spearheading a campaign to get promoters and agencies to help stamp out scams.

NTS aims to empower communities to ‘Take a Stand Against Scams’ and is recruiting ‘Scambassadors’ to spread the message.

The NTS points out that, each year, scams cause between £5bn and £10bn worth of detriment to UK consumers. Scams are a pervasive, criminal threat, which in addition to the financial damage can also cause serious long-term psychological effects and potentially destroy lives.

Sarah Burns, Prizeology founder and Managing Director and a Board Director of UK marketing industry trade body, the Institute of Promotional Marketing, has recently signed up as a Scambassador and wants to highlight the issue of scams to the promotions industry.

Sarah Burns says: “Scams damage lives and can affect people financially and emotionally so it is with great pride that I have joined the work of the Friend Against Scams Team and others who are working together to prevent people from being victims of scams. Scams often target the most vulnerable people in society, but the reality is that anyone can become a victim of a scam, which is why for 2018 I’m putting together a nationwide campaign that targets both consumers and promoters. We need to increase awareness of prize scams among consumers, but we also need to make promoters aware of the scale of the problem. Scams are a major issue for the promotions industry, and we need to encourage promoters to ensure consumers can tell the difference between a scam and a genuine promotion really clearly. I’d like to invite promoters who want to be involved in the 2018 campaign to get in touch with me at hello@prizeology.com. Working together, I believe we can really make a difference.”

Louise Baxter, Team Manager, National Trading Standards Scams Team, observes: “The tactics used by scammers leave victims socially isolated and ashamed of telling their friends and families what’s really going on behind closed doors.”

More information about the NTSI campaign against scams, including the full campaign pack, is available at www.friendsagainstscams.org.uk.

National Trading Standards provides leadership influence, support and resources to help combat consumer and business detriment locally, regionally and nationally. The National Trading Standards Scams Team works in partnership with other agencies across the country to identify and support victims of mass marketing fraud.

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