Consumer Driven

By the time all was said and done, more than 700,000 people had registered to take part in a contest to create the newest flavor of Mountain Dew. More than 350,000 people voted for the winning beverage, which will start appearing on store shelves in January.

The drink, Mountain Dew Voltage, was created through a series of interactive games at DEWmocracy.com and was one of three candidates up for votes that were available for a limited time this summer. Players spent an average of 28 minutes on the site each time, a gold mine in the world of branded online games.

This level of consumer engagement and enthusiasm for a fizzy, odd-colored soda is enjoyed by a brand that has spent years priming its core customer to jump at just such a chance: to actively participate in a very personal way in setting the direction of the brand.

“It was becoming very obvious that this was the trend, consumers wanted some control, some power over the brand that they love,” says Joanne Nicoletti, associate brand manager for Mountain Dew.

Promotions that give consumers the power to participate in the direction of a brand — to develop line extensions, create TV spots, tap out new jingles — are on the rise as media usage continues to fragment and individuals define how, when and where they are willing to communicate with a brand, says Ramona M. Biliunas, senior vice president, group management director at Draftfcb.

Not every brand will have the success that Mountain Dew did, but many are trying. The following is a list of tips and case studies to keep in mind when rolling out these contests.

Be Relevant Bissell, the vacuum cleaner company, got this right. It is playing into people’s love affairs with their pets and how it can help keep flying dog and cat hair in its place: the vacuum cleaner.

It just wrapped up a contest that asked people to submit videos of their pets, with the winner to be featured on the packaging of its Lift-Off Revolution Pet Vacuum.

It launched the contest after successfully testing the concept last year with a pet photo contest. Some 62,000 photos were entered, eliciting 7 million views.

“This is something that we stumbled on by accident,” says Beth Jester, marketing events manager for Bissell. “When we came out with our first product marketed for pets, we used a stock photo of a dog on the box and we kept getting calls about who the dog was. When you pick up on those little cues, the idea for a contest might be right under your nose.”

Temper Expectations as to participation and quality of submissions. A very small percentage of Internet users are likely to participate, and of those, an even smaller percentage will submit something that can actually be presented by the brand, says Chris Parker, senior vice president of marketing services, Story Worldwide.

Offer an Incentive: a prize, discount, sample or giveaway that hits home to get people to participate. In the Bissell case, in addition to offering the winner’s pet a spot on its packaging, it also gave the winner $10,000 to donate to his or her favorite pet charity.

“That was a big motivator,” Jester says. “Those allegiances run deep.”

Develop Marketing Support A contest needs drivers, such as search, print, banner or TV ads or an e-mail blast, to get people to that experience. The contest is often supporting a larger campaign or promotion.

Bissell used a partnership with the “Animal Planet Puppy Games” to promote its video contest and tied the deal to coincide with the opening and closing ceremonies of the Summer Olympics. It added tags promoting the contest to its TV spots that ran during the Puppy Games.

Mountain Dew marketed its promotion with TV spots, radio, P-O-P, online ads and a big push where it knew to find its core drinkers: at the MountainDew.com message board, blogs and YouTube videos.

“We had a lot of online activity,” Nicoletti says.

Communicate Two Ways Doritos is now famous for launching the first consumer-generated ad campaign, the impetus for many more to come. It let people create a 30-second spot for the 2007 Super Bowl. More recently it had people voting for new chip flavors. A core component of its strategy is dialog.

“Listen, don’t just talk,” says Rudy Wilson, Doritos director of marketing. “In that dialog they’ll let you know: Here’s what we want today and here’s what we want tomorrow. Right now, they’re telling us they want to be involved.”

One way Doritos accomplishes this is by offering forums with all of its promos. It assigns a monitor to collect feedback about the likes and dislikes of the program. It also monitors blogs.

Bissell used the opportunity to start the communication process. It sent an e-mail to all entrants inviting them to join its “We Mean Clean Community.” And Doritos keeps the action going. At the same time it announced the winner of the contest at the Web site, it put up a burst at the site telling people to “Come Back September 17 to See How You Can Help Introduce Mountain Dew Voltage with the Ultimate Kick-Off Event.”

While there are plenty of things that can be done right, there are also plenty of things to avoid.

Don’t Make It Complicated Too many questions, too many steps, too many forms and the people move on. If it’s a video contest, put up examples so that people are clear about the size of the video upload and screen and other specifics.

“Keep it simple. The more you ask a consumer to do and the more complicated the steps, the less likely they’ll be willing to participate,” Draftfcb’s Biliunas says.

Don’t Promise What You Can’t Deliver Engage and keep players as fans, not foes. Break the promise, and you’re not likely to have a fan — and it will be that much harder to win them back, she says.

Don’t Panic If a contest doesn’t generate the number of entries hoped for, consider other ways to get the word out and encourage entry. Testing concepts prior to executing can ensure relevance and level of interest, Biliunas says.

Don’t Forget about IT Bissell wasn’t anticipating the number of entrants it received for its pet photo contest and ran into a few technical glitches. Because people had to click through too many pages to find their pets, IT created a function that provided a link to the photos so entrants didn’t have to search among the thousands of photos and could easily send the link to friends to pitch for votes.

Bissell also started the process by cropping and uploading the videos, an insurmountable task once the images began flowing in. So it hired an outside vendor to create a tool for consumers to do it themselves.

It also experienced some problems with voting. It had to develop a way for the photos to display randomly so the same photos didn’t always appear on the opening pages, thus giving those pooches an unfair advantage during the voting phase.

And finally, respect the effort. People spend hours producing, editing, optimizing, tinkering and finally getting content online.

“People are passionate about their piece of work; make sure it doesn’t go into an abyss,” says Story Worldwide’s Parker . “Give them information about what’s happening: When will the video be posted? Did it get rejected and why? Respect the effort that they put into it.”

If this makes running an online user contest seem like a lot of work, get used to it.

“It’s been building over time and it doesn’t look like it will go away any time soon,” says Doritos’ Nicoletti.

For more articles on event marketing, go to www.promomagazine.com/event.