How You Can Use Online Contests To Raise Brand Awareness

I’m a sucker for contests. I absolutely love them and I enter them all the time. Contests are not only a great way to win something cool or gain some extra cash…they are a great way for the company who is running it to advertise themselves or their product. Lets be honest, we all remember the Doritos contest winner from last year’s Super Bowl. Why? Because Doritos did some serious marketing to promote their contest last year, therefore leading to crazy amounts of brand awareness for them all over the internet. I mean, if you see something you like or you have a friend who submitted a commercial and you want to help them get votes, where are you going to post a link? More than likely you will post it on Facebook or tweet it to get exposure from the widest audience all at one time without having to know everyone’s email address.

Some friends of mine recently entered a submission in this year’s Doritos Crash The Superbowl Contest. Within days of posting their video, it is one of the most viewed commercial submissions on the whole site. This proves two things. One is that the use of social media can spread the word rather quickly and two is that Doritos just got oodles of exposure without spending money on media placement. Think about that. Someone just created a commercial for them for free and even if it’s not picked, about 1,400 people have seen it without them even having to do anything. That is excellent marketing! Of course, they are offering the winner 1 million dollars and the chance to work with The Lonely Island, but your prizes don’t have to be so extravagant to get people to participate. Let’s be honest, we all like free stuff.

Our client, Sherman Health, is currently running a contest for Movember. If you don’t know what Movember is, it’s a month long event where men grow mustaches. For Sherman, the mustaches symbolize men’s health and through their Movember Contest, one lucky guy sporting a sweet ‘stache will be taking home some Blackhawks tickets. If you haven’t heard about the Movember contest, take a look at the Sherman Health Blog and see what other fabulous prizes we are giving away! Don’t forget to start growing out that mustache :).