Category: Branding

4 Reasons Brands Should Embrace Sweepstakers

Sweepstakers, also known as “sweepers” and even as “compers” in the UK, are the people who put hours each day into entering sweepstakes and contests. Many of them consider it a full-time job. These people take promotions very seriously, and are frequently more well-versed in the ins and outs of sweepstakes industry than some brand marketers. Not all brands like the thought of a bunch of professional sweepstakers entering their

November 4, 2016

Are Promotional Products Still Relevant?

Stacey Novick, former Account Executive, contributed this post on promotional products. The $22 billion promotion industry is constantly changing to keep up with current consumer trends and the types of promotional products, whether premiums, branded merchandise or custom logo apparel, are also changing. Knowing that social media, gaining followers or having a commercial go viral are probably forefront on your mind, we want to provide you with some information on

July 14, 2016

Things To Consider When Working With A Celebrity — Risky Or Rewarding?

Rosemary Stein, VP from our Chicago office, wrote this piece for MK on what to consider when you want to run a promotion that involves a celebrity. There are advantages and disadvantages to using celebrities in your promotions. Athletes, actors and musicians can influence purchase especially when they align themselves with a product that is relevant to the brand’s target demographic. Very popular celebs can appeal to a broader

January 15, 2016

Sweepstakes Prizes: Regift or Keep?

When offering prizes in a sweeps, you have to offer what people want. We generally tell clients to keep prizing simple: offer cash, electronics, trips or cars, depending on your prize budget. People want those the most. But we wanted to put this to the test! So we polled people on a short nine item list of potential sweepstakes prizes to see if they would keep or regift the

November 10, 2015

50 Reasons to Run a Sweepstakes or Contest

Looking for a reason to run a sweepstakes, contest, instant win game, rewards program or loyalty campaign? Here are 50 of them! To create an email opt-in list. To create a mobile opt-in list. To give away your products. To build your brand. To encourage brand loyalty. To encourage product try-on. To encourage product usage. To encourage product trial. To reward your loyal customers. To introduce your customers to

November 4, 2015

Stop Being Boring and Come Up with a Better Promotion Name

Every so often a new promotion gets underway and it has a working title, such as the “Acme Las Vegas Sweepstakes”, because the brand (Acme is just being used for illustrative purposes, by the way) is having a sweepstakes and the prize is a trip to Vegas. We treat this as a working title, but there are lots of other elements to the sweeps – a celebrity tie-in with a cool

June 9, 2015

Run a Sweepstakes to Make Small Business Saturday A Big Win

Five years ago American Express started promoting a new concept: Small Business Saturday. The idea is simple: consumers are asked to spend their holiday shopping dollars locally at small businesses, and American Express provides incentives to those shoppers. In just those five years, the concept of shopping locally the day after Black Friday has become a holiday tradition. So how can your small business make this the best Small

November 7, 2014

10 Simple Photo Contest Ideas for Your Brand

With social media and user generated content being on every marketers minds these days, you may have thought about running a photo contest. But how can your contest stand out and attract a lot of quality photo entries? Try one of these simple photo contest ideas out. Run a photo contest asking for users to insert your company brand in the photo in a creative or unique way. You could

November 4, 2013

Your Winners List Can Be a Marketing Tool

And the winner is… surprise – your brand! There is an important difference between simply preparing a winners list which is a basic legal requirement, and posting winners. So when addressing the issue of winners lists, use the opportunity to accomplish a few important things. Compliance — First there is the administrative requirement. By law, a winners list must be made available to the public (either online or by mail).

October 1, 2013