Month: June 2016
The Game of Thrones Season 6 finale was this past Sunday night and I am still talking about it. Yes, I am what you call a hard-core fan of Game of Thrones. I’ve been reading every article that I come across to gain insights of what others saw in the final episode, the Winds of Winter, and to learn more about what theories others think will come true in Season 7. At least now we have a pretty good idea of who Jon Snow’s true parents really are. But no one else knows this, not even Jon Snow.
I came across this Adweek article about this new campaign that HBO launched recently that involves an Instagram Contest for us hard-core fans of Game of Thrones as well as fans of Silicon Valley and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. The “Deep Instagram Challenge” tests fan’s knowledge on their Instagram page by having them answer trivia questions to solve clues leading to prizes.
All three challenges are now officially over. The Game of Thrones (GOT) Challenge came first, which launched on June 10. The object of each Challenge was to get to the winning video post by successfully completing multiple levels of word string-type games beginning at the “image of the iconic HBO static” found on HBO’s Instagram page. The first person to successfully complete all the game levels, which led to the winning post, and then make a comment on the winning post, was the Grand Prize winner. There were many dead ends which featured original videos from the show’s stars and fans had to go back and try again.
In the GOT challenge fans knowledge of the seven kingdoms was tested for a chance to win a trip to San Diego Comic-Con and other prizes “worthy of a king or queen”. The Silicon Valley Challenge was launched next on June 13 which offered a chance to win a real-life replica of Erlich’s Aviato car and other prizes “Gilfoyle could only dream of receiving from tech companies vying for his attention”.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver was the last challenge which launched on June 15 and ended June 20. The Grand Prize winner received a trip for two people to New York City sometime this Summer to attend a live taping of John Oliver’s show which includes round-trip airfare, 2-night hotel accommodations and ground transportation. Runner-up prizes included 50 “Make Donald Drumpf Again” hats along with some bonus prizes.
“When the iconic HBO static intro lights up their screens, our fans know they’re about to experience something extraordinary,” adds Chris Spadaccini, evp of brand and product marketing at HBO. We think they’ll be excited by this innovative opportunity to go even deeper inside the static intro and engage with the brand on the Instagram platform.”
Here are a couple of the dead-end videos from the GOT Challenges. Stay tuned and follow HBO on Instagram for the next two challenges they have planned. And for us GOT fans, we just have to wait another year for our show to return.
The first official day of the Summer of 2016 occurred this week. The days are long and the nights are warm. What will be the major trends, events, happenings and songs of this summer? We have been blessed with some beautiful, sunny days here in western New York, but the heat is on across the county, especially in the southwest.
So it’s the perfect time for Eight O’Clock Coffee to launch their Chill in Italy Sweepstakes to promote their home brewed iced coffee. We’re administering this new sweepstakes and working through The S3 Agency, the same agency that we helped launched OCM’s “Room Goals Instant Giveaway” that I wrote about last week.
Eight O’Clock Coffee is giving away a total of 20 instant prizes which are available to be won from now till the end of the sweepstakes which is July 13. These instant prizes consist of an iced coffee package that includes two iced coffee tumblers, one cold brew coffee maker, one silicone ice cube tray, one coupon good for a free Eight O’Clock coffee, one Eight O’Clock mini-tote bag and some recipes for cold coffee.
The Grand Prize drawing will be conducted at the end of the sweepstakes to award a trip to “Chill in Italy” for the winner and guest. This prize includes round trip airfare and 7 day/6 night hotel accommodations in Italy. To enter the Chill in Italy Sweepstakes participants are invited to the Eight-Clock Coffee Facebook page and then directed to the promotion page by clicking on either the Facebook profile photo at the top of the page, the sweepstakes post at the top of their timeline, or the “Chill in Italy Sweepstakes” tab. They need to fill out the required fields on the entry form. Once submitted they will gain one entry into the sweepstakes and immediately be informed if they are an instant winner or not.
Participants can enter and play for a chance to win one of the 20 instant prizes once every 24 hours. Those that do not win an instant prize are encouraged to “Chill Out” and come back tomorrow to try again. In the meantime they are given this recipe for Tiramisu iced coffee made with Eight O’Clock Dark Italian Espresso Coffee. This looks delicious, so I’m going to give it a try…ice cream and dark coffee, two of my favorites! Stay tuned here to learn about some more fun, sweepstakes and contests that will be running this summer.
We’ve been celebrating, Grads, Dads and Brides during this month of June. But even though the graduation ceremonies and parties are still going on, the back-to-school shopping season has also kicked-off. This year, back-to-school retail sales will reach $828.81 billion, based on a recent report from eMarketer who also predicts a higher share than ever is already occurring online. While most back-to-school shopping occurs over the month of August, 52% begin before then—including around one in four who are already shopping by the end of June.
We’re administering a new sweepstakes for OCM.com (On Campus Marketing) called the “Room Goals Instant Giveaway” that just launched off this week. We’ve been working with OCM’s agency, The S3 Agency. Participants are invited to visit the OCM Facebook page and click the link to open the Sweepstakes page where they can enter once a day up till July 31.
OCM is giving away eight complete dorm room make overs each valued at $575. One instant prize per week is available to be won. All they need to do enter their email address and name and instantly find out if they are a winner.
I tried to win and of course got the “Sorry” message. The “Winning” Instant Win play will be awarded based on the number of entries and the timing of the play each week. Prize winners will be contacted by email on each Friday.
So let the BTS shopping season begin!
June is known as the “dads, grads, and brides” month. So I wrote a post last week on a Father’s Day promotion, and the week before about a Twitter promotion for grads, so this week’s post is focused on brides. We’ve working on this promotion for A.C. Moore Arts & Crafts which just launched offering a chance to win a wedding through their Craft Me a Crystal Coast Wedding Contest.
The grand prize wedding consists of a trip for the bride and groom to the Crystal Coast, North Carolina, to get married on October 22, 2016. They will receive round-trip airfare, accommodations for 3 nights in a water-front mansion, a wedding ceremony and a reception accommodating up to 100 guests which will be crafted by celebrity wedding planner David Tutera along with a wedding gown and tuxedo from Mon Cheri Bridals. The total value of this wedding prize is $28,300.
Participants are invited to enter by creating a short video (up to 1 minute) that expresses their love story and why they deserve to have A.C. Moore craft their free, dream wedding at Crystal Coast. They can submit their video from now till August 6 by either posting it to their Instagram account or posting a link to their video on Twitter and use the promotional hashtag #WeddingCrafters. They can also enter on Facebook by visiting the A.C. Moore Facebook page , clicking on the link to the contest page and filling out an entry form that includes a link to their video. The Facebook contest page also includes a gallery where the videos submitted on Facebook will be displayed.
A panel of judges will review all the video submissions and choose a winner based on the following criteria: Originality of the Video 34%, Creativity 33% and Effort 33%. The winner will be contacted on August 9.
So anyone that is available to get married on October 22, get your video submission in soon.
The calendar says it’s June 1 today and the summer season is officially here. It’s a month known in the marketing world as “Dads, Grads and Brides” when we will be celebrating Father’s Day, school graduations, weddings and also the flag. It’s the month where our backyards really come to life again. All the flowers and plants are in full bloom and we have our outdoor living space back again, at least those of us in the northern part of the country.
The month of June provides great opportunities for small businesses to reach out to customers with an incentive to visit their stores, restaurants or websites. According to a National Retail Federation survey, the average person will spend $117 on a gift for Dad which amounts to $12.7 billion in total spending. Wives, moms, children are all starting to think about gift giving and doing something special on June 19 for the fathers in their lives.
Taking dad out for lunch or dinner is a very popular way to celebrate. We’re working with this restaurant chain from Texas to assist them with their “Grillin’ with Dad” Sweepstakes. The Cotton Patch Cafe is inviting people from now till Father’s Day to visit one of their restaurants, located across Texas and in Oklahoma and New Mexico, with the father figure in their life. Once there, they need to take a photo of themselves with their dad and post it on Instagram or Twitter or upload to the CottonPatch Cafe Facebook page and use the hashtags #CottonPatch and #Grill4DadSweepstakes. They also have the option of including a comment explaining their dad’s/father figure’s best grilling tip.
One Grand Prize winner will receive a Weber Performer® 22” Grill valued at $400 and four First Prize winners will each receive a grilling essentials kit. We are again utilizing the SEEN hashtag campaign management platform for this sweepstakes since it has a hashtag only as a means of entry on Instagram and Twitter. The platform pulls in all the posts from Twitter and Instagram that use the promotion-specific hashtags and allows for those posts to be shown in the gallery page as you see here. This platform allows the sponsor the option to moderate the posts so that they may approve or disapprove them before they are posted to the gallery. Since the sweepstakes just started, we don’t see any posts on the gallery page as of yet. This ease of entry method is one of the biggest benefits of using a hashtag only entry and it also provides additional social sharing that can help increase the reach of the promotion.
This is just a good example of how a business can tie in their marketing to the current season with a promotion and social media as well. If you would like to share any promotions that you are doing related to the summer, I would be glad to feature them here as well.
So enjoy the summer and happy Father’s Day to all you dads.