September 2015 - American Sweepstakes

Contests and Sweepstakes: Do I Need Official Rules?

Quite often we get asked whether or not “Official Rules” are need for a specific promotion. Some clients and prospects think that it’s only a small “giveaway” and it doesn’t include a major prize, so why not?

Recently I was asked this question from a long-time client and when I reviewed what they wanted to do, it was quite complicated. It didn’t offer a major prize, but it did include two different ways to enter, on Facebook and Instagram, along with photo upload.

So the answer is always yes. Whether you are planning to run a sweepstakes (giveaway) or a contest, there are rules and regulations that you must follow in order to be compliant. Therefore you need to have a set of Official Rules that outlines the promotion and is your contract with the public.

Back in June I wrote this post that reviewed the differences between sweepstakes and contests and what the major objectives are for running either of them. To summarize, sweepstakes are a game of chance where the winners are normally randomly chosen. Contests on the other hand are a game of skill and participants usually are invited to submit some content (photo, video, essay, etc.). A panel of judges then chooses the winners based on criteria that are defined in the official rules.

Also you need to know that any promotion that contains all of these three elements: Prize, Chance and Consideration (Purchase, Payment or Time) is an “Illegal Lottery” in the U.S. The Time element is the grayest area of all these. If you are planing to run a promotion that does include Consideration, then you must allow an alternate means of entry (AMOE). Most social media promotions do not usually require consideration. However, writing about a product or taking a photo or video of the product in order to enter may be consideration.

For example, if the participant can take a photo of themselves with a product in a store, then a purchase would not be required. Or for example, if you’re asking them to take a photo of themselves with a pair of shoes “out and about the town” that would most likely require purchasing the shoes and therefore, Consideration. There is a fine line between the two. Another example is asking participants to take a photo while taking a bite of a doughnut or sipping a drink. They can’t return the doughnut or the drink then, so wouldn’t that require purchase? You need to ask if the participant can effectively compete without actually making a purchase.

Also a very popular trend on social media is inviting participants to earn extra entries by performing different tasks and challenges on various platforms. Not only do you need to follow the guidelines of each social media platform, you also need to keep in mind the degree of effort that you are asking participants to perform to gain an entry. So how much time is too much and what can you really require? The Supreme Court did rule that watching a 30 minute TV show wasn’t too much time, so that’s a guideline to follow. But keep in mind that while awarding bonus entries for sharing/referring may not likely fall under consideration, it may be against Federal CAN/SPAM regulations.

Another thing to keep in mind is the FTC’s Endorsement and Testimonial Guidelines. They recently published a list of Q&A’s that state that when it comes to sweepstakes and contests, any incentive, no matter how minimal, such as an entry for making a post on social media sites, may be an endorsement. Thus it requires a disclosure. The use of the promotion title alone is not adequate, and they are encouraging including #Contest or #Sweepstakes or #Entry or a similar designation in a hashtag. The recent updated Q&A’s now states that using #sweeps as the hashtag is not enough and instead it should be #sweepstakes.

Another rising trend today on social media is running a sweepstakes or contest utilizing only a hashtag with no entry form. Entrants may be invited to post a tweet on Twitter or upload a photo on Twitter or Instagram utilizing a promotional hashtag. Many marketers like these types of promotions since it creates buzz and makes it easy for entrants. However, hashtag entries do not collect data on the entrants since there is no entry form to fill out. Data collection is the number one reason why marketers run sweepstakes and contests. Without collecting data this also can make it more difficult to contact winners. There are however, applications that you can utilize that include both such as what was discussed in this post.

So it all comes back to what your main objectives are for running a promotion. You need to consider what the risks may be and also be realistic in what you are asking participants to do. Most of all, be sure to cover yourself and your company by running a successful and legally compliant promotion that includes a set of Official Rules.

Sweepstakes helps to kick off Breast Cancer Awareness Month

We’re already seeing some “Pink” promotions as we get closer to October. This year we are working with the YSC, Young Survival Coalition, a national organization that supports young women facing breast cancer.

They just launched the YSC “We Can Survive Concert” Sweepstakes that will award a trip for two to attend the “We Can Survive” concert taking place in the Hollywood Bowl on October 24. This will be the third annual concert put on by CBS Radio. The concert will feature live performances by Maroon 5, Sam Smith, The Weeknd, Calvin Harris, 5 Seconds of Summer, Demi Lovato, and Nick Jonas. The last two shows were sold out.

“In just its third year, WE CAN SURVIVE is widely recognized as a must play event for today’s biggest artists,” said Chris Oliviero, Executive Vice President of Programming, CBS RADIO. “The line-up gets bigger and better every year with hit performances, talked about collaborations, and surprise guests. Fans can expect all that and more this time around.”

In honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, for every ticket sold, $2 will benefit the Young Survival Coalition. This year Oakley is sponsoring the sweepstakes and covering the cost of the grand prize. The trip includes two round-trip economy airfare tickets, a two night hotel stay along with two tickets to the We Can Survive concert. Women who were diagnosed with breast cancer by the age of 40 can enter the sweepstakes up until October 7. They have to visit the YSC website and answer a few short questions regarding their diagnosis.

CBS Radio is also giving away some tickets to the concert along with a trip to Los Angeles through their website Radio.com and through select CBS RADIO stations.

My mother, unfortunately, did not survive breast cancer, although she was diagnosed at one time as “cancer free”. While she was not a young woman when she was first diagnosed, she did leave us way too young. So in honor of my mom and National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I am very grateful to help support this cause and promote this event.

YSC We Can Survive Concert Sweepstakes

Sweepstakes & Contests: Social Media Hashtags or Entry Forms?

Today’s post was written by Alex Ditty, Client Operations Manager at SEEN. You can read more posts written by Alex on their blog.

Contests and sweepstakes are smart and effective ways to engage your community and promote your brand. At SEEN, there have been hundreds of brands across a wide variety of industries who have used our campaign management platform for these types of promotions.

Because of this experience, we’re commonly asked whether it’s better to have participants enter simply by sharing with a hashtag or if the brand should also include an entry form for participants to complete. In short, our answer is always, “it depends”. It depends on the goals of the contest and what you’re hoping to gain. This is a topic that has been written about on this blog before, and we’ll go into more detail on the differences and benefits of running a contest or sweepstakes with hashtag sharing versus requiring completion of an entry form to help you plan your next social media campaign.

Entry Form Benefits
Requiring completion of an entry form gives you the ability to gain more information from the participants. This benefits you in three important ways. The first is simply the ability to get in touch with the participants in order to send the winners their prizes. When you’re unable to collect contact information you’re limited to social messaging to try and get in touch with the winners, which may not yield positive results.

Along with contacting the winners, the second benefit is that you can also gain the ability to contact all of the participants in future marketing campaigns. When they provide you with contact information and opt into your email marketing, then you’re able to use the promotion as a lead generation tool. Additionally, this process can help unify your customer’s identities by creating a link between their email address and social profiles.

The third and often the most overlooked benefit is the opportunity to gain important learning. With an entry form you can have your participants share important data with you such as location and demographic information. This new touch point can help impact other marketing initiatives by gaining a better understanding of who your customers are and how you can connect with them.

With the Registration Tool in the SEEN Campaign Manager, participants verify their social accounts and enter their contact information to confirm their participation in the campaign and to link their social and email identities to your marketing.

Entry Form Drawbacks
Though you’re gaining more useful information with an entry form, you’re also slightly complicating the entry process for your participants. By adding in this additional step for participation, you may limit the involvement from your community. It is possible for this to act as a filtering mechanism to determine who is really interested in your brand, however it may also restrict the overall number of people that participate. Before implementing a mandatory entry form, consider the potential barrier that this can create and how it may affect participation.

Hashtag Sharing Benefits
When you’re launching a social media sweepstakes or contest, an easy way that you can get people involved is simply by encouraging them to share with a promotion-specific hashtag. This will most often result in higher participation numbers than those that require an entry form. This ease of entry is one of the biggest benefits, and the additional social sharing that the hashtag provides can also help you increase the reach of the promotion. Participation is likely to be the most important success metric in your campaign and hashtag entries can give you confidence that you’ll have a high participation rate with its simplicity to enter.

Hashtag Sharing Drawbacks
Hashtag entry will gain you a lot more campaign entries and likely lead to higher participation rates, however ir misses out on the vital learning and marketing benefits that entry forms provide. When you simplify the entry process, you take away opportunities for the participants to also share vital information with you that can strengthen your relationship with them. When planning a contest or sweepstakes based solely on hashtag sharing, ask yourself if participation or data collection is the more important success metric for your goals.

So, which of these entry types is best for you next promotion? Well, that depends on your marketing goals. The first step is to determine your goals are and with those in mind, you can properly implement either of these participation options. Some brands don’t have the luxury of building entry forms for each of their contests, which makes hashtag entry the only option. Fortunately, there are tools like the SEEN Campaign Manager where you can easily implement either or both of these options with no development work.

Understanding the benefits and drawbacks of each participation option, we’ve designed our campaigns to simplify the process for both the social media managers and the participants. For the manager, launching a hashtag based promotion and turning on custom entry forms are very easily done with a click of a button. And when registration forms are implemented, participants are still converting at over 40% in the average SEEN-powered contest. These kinds of results help you take advantage of both worlds to maximize the ROI of your social media campaigns.

NOTE: You can read Donna’s blog post that will be posted later today here on the SEEN blog. Feel free to contact us if you’d like more information on utilizing the SEEN Campaign Manager.

US Open Highlights: Serena vs. Venus and American Express daily ticket giveaways

I watched the much anticipated quarterfinal of the U.S. Open between Serena Williams vs. her older sister Venus last night. Serena is now only two wins away from a Grand Slam after a 6-2, 1-6, 6-3 win over Venus. We got to witness some high-quality tennis from both athletes, with Venus not going down without a fight.

It was the 14th anniversary of the sisters’ first-ever meeting at the U.S. Open. I can’t begin to imagine how hard it must be all these year’s competing against your own sister. Serena was quoted as saying that she has to concentrate on playing the ball and not the person. A victory for Serena this weekend would be the 22nd Grand Slam win of her career, tying her with Steffi Graf for the most wins in the Open era.

American Express is a longstanding sponsor of the US Open Tennis Championships. This year they launched a new experience to help bring the excitement of the US Open into midtown Manhattan in addition to on-site promotions at Flushing Meadows in Queens. The US Open Live at Rockefeller Center began on Saturday, August 30 and ran till Sunday, September 7. This area between 50th and 51st street was transformed into a center court with stadium seating, a Jumbotron screen where fans enjoyed broadcasts of each day’s games, concessions and a number of other “fun for the fans” activities — all free and open to the public.

“The US Open is a premier event that people around the world look forward to and this year more tennis fans, New Yorkers and American Express Cardmembers can enjoy the experience,” said Nancy Smith, Vice President Global Media and Sponsorship, American Express.

In conjunction with its US Open Live at Rockefeller Center, American Express also ran the “From Rockefeller Center to Flushing Meadows” Sweepstakes. A daily drawing was held that enabled a Cardmember a chance to win a pair of courtside-level tickets to that evening’s matches. The prize package also included limousine transportation to the USTA National Tennis Center and a Be My Guest Card for complimentary dining. Additional pairs of tickets were also awarded. Cardmembers were able to enter the drawing from 11:00 a.m.- 2:00 p.m. daily at the guest information booth.

Good luck to Serena. We’ll all be watching this weekend and cheering you on. It’s an exciting weekend in sports…US Open Finals, first week of the NFL season and the boys of September are fighting to make the playoffs.

What types of user data are being collected the most from sweepstakes & contests

Collecting user data if the number one reason that marketing folks run sweepstakes and contests. Most of these types of promotions use an online entry form that includes a variety of fields entrants must fill out in exchange for a chance to win. Once marketers have someone’s email address, or mobile phone number, they can then add that person to a list and begin a dialog. As long as you provide a way for that person to unsubscribe in the future you are good.

When we create a promotional micro-site or a Facebook tab page we mainly do this by using the Shortstack application. I’ve written here on this blog about many different promotions that we have created with this app. When building these sites we normally recommend the required fields on an entry page to include the entrant’s first and last name, email address, mailing address and phone number, along with a check box that states that they have read and agree to the Official Rules.

So you need to decide what data you want to collect and what data you need in order to make your promotion run smoothly. A mailing address is definitely needed if you have secondary prizes with low value which then enables you to just ship out these prizes to the winners. A phone number comes in very handy when we are trying to contact a winner to notify them that they are a potential winner. When using just an email address you run the chances of ending up in someone’s spam folder, or just getting deleted. And if you’re building your mobile list, then of course you would ask for their mobile phone number.

The team at Shortstack recently published some findings from the many sweepstakes and contests that have been created utilizing their application regarding the types of data that is collected. They analyzed a database of nearly 1 million promotion forms that brands from around the world have created. I found their findings interesting and pretty much in line with the data collection we recommend. They also listed some key insights that they gathered from these findings. None of these insights surprised me, but it’s always good to have the documentation to back it up. To view the entire article with the findings and insights visit Shortstack’s website here.

A rising trend in the industry is running a sweepstakes or contest on social media utilizing a hashtag. Entrants may be invited to post a tweet on Twitter or upload a photo on Twitter or Instagram utilizing the promotional hashtag. Many marketers like these types of promotions since it creates buzz and makes it easy for entrants. However, they do not collect data on the entrants since there is no entry form to fill out. It also can make it a little more difficult to contact winners. So it all depends on what your main objectives are for running the promotion.

In summary, Shortstack concludes that marketers continue to run sweepstakes and contests and promote them on their social media channels. This allows them to gather valuable data about their audience. Email addresses are still the most important data that they collect. Also, Facebook has become less critical for brands when running these types of promotions. In addition to utilizing Facebook less, successful sweepstakes and contests are giving away prizes that are high value and relevant to their audience. Thanks Shortstack for the information.