Tag: compliance

Sweepstakes Rules…. Make Them Official

While many online articles and posts about Sweepstakes and Contests offer great insights and suggestions on ways to increase sweeps engagement or allow you to increase sales by running promotions, there is usually one glaring best practice missing from the majority of these articles; the need for and importance of Official Rules. If the sweeps is on Facebook or other social channel, some articles smartly reference Facebook’s Promotion Guidelines or the best practices

April 27, 2015

Age Matters When Planning a Promotion

Fae Savignano, Marden-Kane SVP, provided this week’s post. When planning a promotion, age definitely matters. To fully understand this concept, we first need to define what the age of majority (legal age) means. The age of majority is the legally defined age at which a person is considered an adult, with all the attendant rights and responsibilities of adulthood. The age of majority is defined by state laws, which

February 3, 2015

The Implications of Running a Sweepstakes or Contest in Quebec

Rosemary Stein, former VP from our Chicago office, wrote this piece for MK on running promotions in Quebec. You have probably noticed that when Sweepstakes or Contests are run in the U.S. and extended to Canada the promotion will sometimes be “void in Quebec.” In Canada, promotions are governed primarily by federal law. Quebec is the only province that specifically regulates promotions and their restrictions are more severe than those

July 29, 2014

3 Twitter Sweepstakes Best Practices

Running a sweepstakes on Twitter can be the fastest to market, and most cost effective, method of running a sweepstakes. However, things can quickly go wrong if you don’t follow these 3 simple best practices: Follow the brand. The only way to privately contact your potential winners via Twitter is still via direct message (DM). And the only way to DM an entrant is if they follow your

July 23, 2014

TCPA Compliance: What it Means for Promotional Marketers

Beginning October 16, 2013, prior express written consent is now required for all autodialed and/or pre-recorded calls or texts sent or made to cell phones and pre-recorded calls made to residential land lines for marketing purposes. As Marden-Kane reported last year, it may be all too easy to get in trouble if you use data collected in a prior promotional campaign. If you plan on using any phone numbers that were

July 14, 2014

How a Fortune 500 Company Runs a Sweepstakes

Ask a Fortune 500 CMO what the most important thing about running a Sweepstakes is, and chances are very good that the top thing on their list is not doing it the “fast and easy” way. Being part of a high profile company means worrying about security, privacy, consistency of brand, legal compliance and a list of other items that are enough to keep most CMOs awake at night.

November 14, 2013

Your Sweepstakes Entry Form Template: How Much Data Do You Really Need?

We once had someone come to us after they ran a promotion to tell us that they were having a hard time contacting winners. It turns out they were so busy trying to protect the user by not collecting personal data on individual entrants that they had not collected a way to contact the winners! We understand the need for privacy controls, but in order to add someone to a

October 21, 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

The Legalities of a Sweepstakes Campaign

Sweepstakes are becoming more popular as a way of building brand awareness. Online and mobile marketing have made them extremely accessible to consumers, allowing the sponsor of the sweepstakes to reach them no matter where they are, with increased speed and sense of urgency. Sweepstakes are attractive to consumers, as they provide the excitement of possibly of winning something of value.

December 6, 2012

Contest Management Experts; Planning, Legalities, and Execution

Putting together a contest that meets your objectives can be fun and exciting especially when your plan is well thought out. A hard-hitting call to action will drive consumers to your brand, when you pay attention to what is important to them. Most important will be creating a prize structure based on what they like and need.

December 5, 2012