Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1964)

time. In Washington, D.C., one winner of a national third prize properly brought all members of his family along with him to help collect — a total of 12 people. In the 15-minute spree allotted them, they collected groceries worth more than $ 1 1 ,000. For its part, Pepsi collected equally impressive publicity from its contest — especially the pay-off sprees. The family of 12 in Washington, for example, was covered by 20 radio and 5 tv stations. And like all the other payoffs around the country (which took longer to run than the contest itself), it won lots of free lineage in the form of newspaper coverage too. The contest's impact came from two sources: (I) the parent company's sponsorship of the over-all national effort, including 121 major prizes; (2) some 522 Pepsi bottlers who held their own contests and shopping-spree payoffs locally. The parent company used its regular network tv to promote the contest, while local bottlers bought spot radio and tv heavily. "It's difficult even to estimate the exposure we achieved," says S.M. Maran, promotion director for the parent company, "but we did arrive at some conservative estimates." Bottlers, alone, he reports, placed at least 2500 newspaper inserts, 13,000 minutes on tv and at least 200,000 minutes on radio. The figures for broadcasting arc conservative, he points out, because they include only commercials that were a full one-minute long and therefore don't include ID's, 20's, or any others, even though they, too, were placed "in vast quantity." What were the results? In the fiercely competitive softdrink field, Pepsi officials never cite sales figures but do concede that they were satisfied. "V^et, there's a further clue to actual results: Pepsi's entry blank took the form of a carton-stuffer — one for each six-pack carrier. When the contest was finished, over 60 million of those stuffers had been returned. That gives Pepsi the alltime number one spot for the greatest number of entries of any contest ever. By itself, a contest may mean little. But put to good use, it can really add energy to a company's over-all advertising effort. SOME CONTEST POINTERS DOs: Plan, discuss your contest in advance, don't just "plunge in" as a last resort. Unless your agency employs a specialist, call in contestplanning firm. Define your marketing objectives. Try, via your contest, to establish an idea. Support it with advertising volume. Key it all to EXCITEMENT. Consider the potent benefits of a trade contest tie-in. Pick inventive and appropriate prizes. Give merchandise w^hen possible. Follow first prize with impressive runners-up. Establish, if feasible, local contests with many prizes. Make prizes tax free. Use radio and tv to "breathe life into prizes." Support it with point-of purchase material. Obtain Post Office clearance. Prime your sales force well in advance. Check seven states (or your advisers) for illegalities there. Put dealers in the know ahead of time so they can stock, utilize whatever is needed. Make sure entry blanks are at stores, if so advertised. Make entry blanks large enough to fill in properly. Give different post office boxes for different media to be able to trace advertising pull. Allow wide variety of entries in jingle-completion contests of skill. Sell your contest, not your product. Let all non-contest themes take back seat to your contest promotion on your regular ad schedules during run of the contest. For permanent results, leave something behind in contest wake. Remember that the keynote of a good contest is simplicity. DON'Ts: Don't overcomplicate entry procedure. Don't require "consideration" of sweepstakes entrant or it'll become a lottery. Don't judge contest results by wrong criterion — i.e., by number of entries received if your objective was to win more supermarket shelf space. Don't announce a $1 billion contest and then give a bag of peanuts as first prize — especially if you manufacture potato chips; in short, remember to unify theme, awards, product. Don't forget that the elements of any good advertising are what also make for a good contest. October 12, 1964 39