3 rules for creating a contest to market your brand

I suddenly see contests everywhere. Maybe it´s just a phase I´m going through, perhaps they have always been there, but anyway, I see competitions in every corner... contests, win this, win that...

I am aware of that some probably brilliant strategist came up with the idea to get people´s attention through dangling a fabulous prize in front of them. Awareness, leads to consideration, leads to sales... But the weird thing is that many of these prizes are not about the brand. They are about other brands. Brands and products to win are many times not even closely related to the brand paying for them. Hmm.

3 simple rules of contests:

- If the consumers get too excited about the prize, all they will see is that, and your brand will be put in the corner.
- Most people (especially younger age groups) will be happy about a small sample, maybe even more than about the thought of perhaps, maybe win something fabulous.
- Make sure the prize makes sense and that your brand will be associated with it. If you want your brand to 'smell, feel, taste, be' trendy and youthful, let people win a voucher at General Pants - but make sure you have worded the offer in a way that the brands get rubbed against each other, and not just parallell entities.

Attention is not everything. Just look at the romantic process:

I notice you - I see you - I flirt with you - I date you - I want to be exclusive - Let´s get married and have babies

With a random contest you will only get to the first or second stage. With a clever contest you can go further.

Words from a wise strategist, for people who are curious about our area of work: http://www.markpollard.net/why-strategists-should-make-stuff/