Articles
8 Creative Employee Incentive Ideas to Inspire Your Work From Home Staff
COVID-19 has turned many companies upside down in how they approach their work and the engagement of their employees. Here are 8 employee incentive ideas to inspire your work from home staff to work harder than ever, even when the new normal is not so normal. 1. Encourage Self Care How are you encouraging self-care for employees that are working from home? Run a promotion on Facebook asking your employees to share how they are taking a break. Maybe it is taking a quick walk outside, throwing in a tub of laundry, taking the dog out, putting dinner in … Continue reading
Prize Fulfillment Considerations for Your Next Sweepstakes or Contest
Prize fulfillment is the part of the sweepstakes or contest that consumers may love the best, but for the promotion administrator there is a lot more involved than putting a prize in the mail. Here are 6 things to consider when putting together a plan for prize fulfillment for your next sweepstakes, contest or instant win game. 1. Prize sourcing Giving away the latest goods, services, and experiences takes planning — and potentially lots of vendors and contacts, especially if an item is hard to find or in high demand. Cars given as prizes need to be sourced locally … Continue reading
Use Unique Codes for Your Next Instant Win or Sweepstakes
Using unique codes can enhance your next sweepstakes, giveaway, or instant win game. With unique codes incorporated into your promotion you can: Provide tracking of entrants back to a region or store. Give your sales team a specific range of codes that can be tracked back to their sales, which can give you the opportunity to reward the highest producers. Pinpoint game participation to a specific geographic area. Determine which products are the biggest drivers in the promotion. Unique codes on printed game pieces given out at stores or on products, or obtained online or via email, can be … Continue reading
McMillion$ and the Importance of Instant Win Game Security
If you aren’t sure why instant win game security is that big of a deal, you might want to watch the new HBO docuseries called “McMillion$”. It details the strange, and almost unbelievable, true story of how an employee at a promotional marketing company called Simon Marketing, a former competitor of Marden-Kane’s, committed fraud in the McDonald’s Monopoly games between 1989 and 2001, bilking McDonald’s and their customers out of $24,000,000 in prizes. The first episode of a six-part HBO documentary series aired on Monday, February 3, 2020. When the story of the McDonald’s fraud case first broke in 2001, … Continue reading
How to Run a Legal Scavenger Hunt
Ever thought about running a treasure hunt or scavenger hunt as part of your brand’s marketing efforts? A legal scavenger hunt is the way to engage your loyal customers and offer a fun, immersive experience. Depending on the level of skill involved in your scavenger hunt, the promotion may be deemed a contest (skill-based) or a sweepstakes (game of chance). Either way, you will want to have a full set of legal, official rules in place to govern the promotion to cover all possibilities – such as what the tie-breaker would be if two people found the treasure at … Continue reading
5 Ways a Sweepstakes Can Help Your New Business Marketing Goals
We get it. Running a new business probably takes up all of your time, and you don’t have a lot of extra energy to think about marketing your business. Running a simple sweepstakes, however, could be the way to meet your new business marketing goals. By running a 30 day simple sweepstakes with a high value prize you could achieve one of the following five new business marketing goals: Get new followers on social. Facebook, Instagram, Instagram Stories, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and SnapChat are all platforms where you can run a sweepstakes, as long as you follow the promotion … Continue reading
No Purchase Necessary for Running a Sweepstakes
In the United States, No Purchase Necessary is a term associated with all sweepstakes. Legally, in order to run a sweepstakes you cannot require a purchase in order to enter. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t ask entrants to make a purchase – it just means that anyone entering without purchase must have the same chance as someone entering with purchase. Here are two ways to use a sweepstakes to boost purchases and still meet the legal requirement for no purchase necessary: 1. Alternate Means of Entry: You can ask people to make a purchase in exchange for … Continue reading
Can You Run an Instagram Stories Sweepstakes?
Clients have been asking us lately if they can run an Instagram Stories sweepstakes or contest. Here are the facts. What are Instagram Stories? Instagram Stories are a feature of Instagram that allows users to post short videos or photos of their day in a sort of “highlight reel” that disappears in 24 hours. Similar to Snapchat, you can add text or animation or effects to your posts, as well as decide if they are public or available to only your followers. You can also add your favorite Instagram Stories to your profile as “Highlights.” In layman’s terms, here … Continue reading
10 Cool Winter Prize Ideas
As the temperatures continue to drop, businesses wonder what they should give away with during their winter promotions. Here are 10 cool winter prize ideas for the cold weather season: 1. A trip to Iceland A trip to see the Northern Lights is on most people’s bucket lists. Make dreams come true with a trip to Iceland to see the lights up close. 2. Tickets to a hockey game Let’s Go, Islanders! Give the prize of ringside seats to the next game of your local hockey team. Fans will always go out of their way to shop at your store … Continue reading
Our Memories of Barbara at Marden-Kane
Barbara Chien our beloved Controller is retiring from Marden-Kane on December 31st, 2019.
To honor her 34 years of service, guidance and friendship, we have created this retirement tribute as a testament of how much she has impacted our lives.
This scrapbook of memorable moments in time is filled with all our good wishes along with an abundance of photos capturing the many happy faces that have been part of her life while at MK.
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