Businesses have used contests to promote products and services for a long time now. Here are some ways in which you can use contests to leverage brand value…
Demonstrations
Live demonstrations are a great way of getting people to see the effects of your product. They can touch and feel the product and see the results right before themselves.
Floating a contest that allows prospects to use your product in an innovative manner and giving away prizes is a good way to get people to use your product and apply it differently. I’ve seen a lot of companies do this with food products and art essentials. Tying up with a local store and getting people to cook with olive oil or paint on different surfaces are some contests that I’ve seen producing beautiful results.
People pitch in, brainstorm and think out of the box while having fun with your products!
Name My Brand
If you are launching a new business or a new product or line of products then getting people interested by floating a contest to get them to name your brand is a great idea. You end up with lots of interesting options for brand names while the winner takes the prize…a win-win situation on both sides.
A friend of mine used this method to her advantage when she launched her business which operates online through a Facebook page for The Hijab Design Studio, a Pune based business run by Mifrah Abid and Anisa Khan.
The duo floated a contest asking people to suggest names for their venture. Entries poured in from everywhere, family, friends and relatives participated, coming up with names supplemented by meanings if the name was an Arabic or Urdu name. The prize in question…a scarf, but that wasn’t really the main motivation, most people took part out of affection for the founders and also for the sheer fun of it.
Create an Advertisement
As a teacher of advertising and marketing creating on the spot advertisements for fictitious ventures was a favorite activity that I and my students enjoyed having in class.
One ambitious venture that we as a college had undertaken some years ago was creating hoarding advertisements for Bakers Basket, a local baked goodies brand based in Pune. The contest was open to students from colleges across Pune city. Students created hoarding advertisements on standard size chart paper based on the brief provided by Bakers Basket.
The advertisements were judged by luminaries from the advertising world. Winning entries received cash prizes, coupons and hampers and went up on actual hoardings in Pune city. The result…Bakers Basket got hoarding advertisements without paying a bomb and students got rewards and recognition for their creative efforts.
What better way to gain brand leverage then? What are you waiting for? Go ahead launch a contest!
Image credit: Sprite