Father’s Day is this Sunday, June 18. It appears that this holiday has become almost as huge as Mother’s Day for marketers to get their products and services out if front of consumers. I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago about “Grads and Dads” that included the Templeton Rye Whiskey Sweepstakes as well as a shout out about my daughter’s graduation from veterinary school. So here’s a couple more Father’s Day Sweepstakes from our client, American International Industries (AII Beauty), that we’re assisting with.

AII Beauty also did run a couple of Mother’s Day sweepstakes that I featured in this post, which makes sense because the majority of their brands are beauty products targeted to women. But they do have a few brands for men. The first sweepstakes was for their CLUBMAN Pinaud brand which just ended on June 12. The brand was originally founded in France in 1810, and today its CLUBMAN line of men’s toiletries can be found in virtually every barber shop and men’s club across the United States. These products include colognes, after shave lotions, skin and hair tonics, talcs, deodorants, hair-care products and shave creams.

The current sweepstakes if for their Woody’s For Men brand which is running just till Saturday, June 17. This brand includes men’s grooming products that are directed at the man who is looking for a simple, comfortable daily regimen that offers basic, no-frill products that smell good and get the job done. These include various hair, shaving, body and styling products. They state that these products combine the cool, laid back attitude of surf culture with the style and quality desired by Hollywood’s finest.

A post announcing each sweepstakes ran on each brands Facebook and Instagram sites. The CLUBMAN Pinaud Father’s Day Giveaway asked people to like the post and add a comment that described their memory of their first barbershop experience with their dad. They drew a total of 10 prize winners, 5 from all those that participated on their Facebook page and five from their Instagam page . Each winner received a 9 piece Beard & Shave Kit, a Shave Brush, Hair Tonic and three 6 oz. After Shaves all valued at $235. One Facebook winner posted “Wow thank you. This will be a great gift for my dad.”

The Woody’s For Men  Father’s Day Giveaway also asked people to like the post and the comment they needed to add was to describe a best memory with their dad, or as a dad. 10 prize winners will again be drawn, 5 from all those that participated on their Facebook page and five from their Instagam page. These winners will each receive a 3 piece Body Care Kit, a Woody’s Barber Cape, 1 Love Grenade, 1 Woody’s Cologne and 1 Beard Stuff Kit all valued at $155. Check out some good dad memories shared here already on their Facebook page and on their Instagram page.

My daughters will have to wait till the end of July to celebrate Father’s Day with their dad, which will be the next time we all get together. In the meantime I’m taking him out to dinner on Sunday. Happy Father’s Day to all.

JuneThe 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.

Cotton Patch CafeTaking 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.