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Ad agencies' contests aim to engage
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More from BusinessContestants, start your engines. The advertising world has something out there for you.
There's an H.J. Heinz Co. contest in which the best 30-second commercial submitted will pick up a $57,000 prize. The Stok line of coffee enhancers just kicked off a national online competition asking participants to post dance videos all using the same "hyper jubilant" tune.
If you aren't the competitive, camera-wielding type, you still can join the party.
How about sending a text message so you can win more turkey on your Subway sub? Or coming out to see adoptable felines in a van sponsored by cat food maker Del Monte Foods Co.?
If marketers have done their jobs correctly, consumers who participate in any of these activities will feel involved, attached and — here's the magic word — engaged.
"Consumer engagement" is the term coined to describe what advertising and marketing agencies are striving to achieve so they can prove to clients they are not simply holding a bullhorn up and shouting a message that will fall on unresponsive ears.
Engagement requires consumers to actually do something.
Passively listening to a commercial doesn't leave proof you actually got the message.
Few ad agencies can get away with simply presenting strategic plans for making the funniest or the most shocking 30-second spots.
Busy lives, the Internet, cable TV, video games, DVDs and cell phones have made traditional advertising less effective.
Judges at Cannes last month gave top advertising prizes to an online commercial for Dove that consumers shared with friends and a Burger King campaign that included video games developed to play on Microsoft's Xbox 360 system that featured the chain's King character.
Consumers could relate to Dove's question about the definition of beauty as an ordinary woman is transformed by makeup, lighting and computer enhancement to billboard beauty. Other consumers liked playing the Burger King games enough to spend precious time doing so.
"If you need another example that we've already given the keys to the consumer, that's it," said Gordon Robertson, group creative director at Marc USA/Pittsburgh.
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