contest

The Boston Pizza Designer Pizza Vote has come to an end, and the results are in.

For our team at Strutta, the most important metric we measured this time around was how the client felt about the experience and the technology. "We had the pleasure of working with Strutta on a brand new venture for our company," said Ryan Ashton, National Advertising Manager for Boston Pizza International. "From idea conception through to final deployment, including all project management work, they assumed the role of experts and navigated us through to the end product, which we couldn't be more pleased with."

We're equally delighted to be working with them, and we're glad the promotion was such a big success. The winner of the grand prize of free pizza for a year hasn't been announced yet, but we thought that now would be a good time time share a few details about how the contest was operated and even give you a sneak peek at some of the results.

Contest Type

The Designer Pizza Vote falls into the "product testing" category, where the "contestants" (in this case, six very bold pizza designs) are already determined, and visitors vote to pick their favorite. 

Software Used

The "pizza carousel" at the core of the vote is now legendary. Senior Architect Steven Wittens created it as a fun experiment with javascript, and people have been mistaking it's smooth fluidity with Flash ever since. When our clients at Boston Pizza saw the first versions of it, a quick decision was made to feature the carousel right on their home page, as a widget. 

Who Could Enter? How?

The contest was open to all Canadians over 13 years of age with a valid email address. Each visitor could register just one vote for their favorite, and immediately see the results in a pie chart (Get it? Pie chart? Just checking).  

Results? 

I'm sure the biq question on everyone's mind is "Which of these delicious pies won the vote?" In the end, it wasn't even close. The Canadian Classic took first place with 33% of votes, while the remaining contestants split the rest. It's tempting to think that it's all in a name, and that Canadians were just voing patriotically, but Francis Steiner of Let'sGoForDinner.com seemed to suggest that the rest of the recipes were just too polarizing in a popular vote. "It (the Canadian Classic) was closest to one that I would actually eat," said Steiner, when reviewing the choices.

While we will protect the actual figures of the votes out of respect for our clients, there are a few numbers that are just too good, so we HAVE to tell you. During the period of the contest, BP experienced the largest increase in subscribers in the history of their email club campaign. By offering both a grand prize and a free appetizer coupon just for voting and the opt-in email form converted a whopping 91.8% of all voters. We'd love to take all of the credit for making it so easy for all involved, but that kind of conversion rate tells a story about people's affinity to the Boston Pizza brand as well. Due to the fact that two promotions were running concurrently, all of those email club subscribers were rewarded with a free personal pizza coupon after their first week, a happy accident for Boston Pizza as it inevitably creating a new army of faithful BP fans, whose lifetime value as customers will mean that BP will enjoy the benefits of this promotion for years to come.

"Our experience in dealing with Strutta has been nothing short of spectacular, said Ashton. "And it's easy to see that we'll be joining forces with them again down the road for bigger, better and more engaging initiatives, which I know they'll come through on."

We look forward to it, and we'll be sure that you're the first to know when we have more news to share on what's next. 

If you have questions about contests like this one, or promotions that use user-generated video, photo or text submissions, visit our contact page and we'd be happy to talk to you about what your options are. 

This morning we launched another contest on our platform, and we are especially proud of this one.

Operation Gratitude is a charity that sends care packages to US troops deployed overseas. Especially during the holiday season, they make every effort to send care packages of familiar items from home to as many US servicemen and women as they can. To date, "OpGrat" volunteers have shipped close to 400, 000 care packages. Each contains a personally written note from a citizen at home, thanking them for their bravery and service.

Write a Letter, Enter to Win

Writing a short letter of thanks is a simple gesture, but to hear how much difference it makes in the lives of the troops, you get a sense of how rewarding an experience it is. The following video explains the contest, and features a few sound bytes from troops that have received care packages: 

Reminding these men and woman how important and appreciated they are seems reward enough, but Operation Gratitude and the contest sponsor, Roger's Family Coffee Company, are offering prizes in a random draw just for entering. Win the Grand Prize and your letter will go in the box of the 400, 000th Operation Gratitude care package. $2000 will be donated to the school of your choice, and you'll also receive a $250 gift certificate (good for a year's supply of Roger's Coffee) and a $100 iTunes Gift card. More information on prizes can be found on the prize page.

Your letters make a big difference, and Operation Gratitude appreciates your help in making sure they can send letters and packages to as many members of the US Military as possible.

Our team at Strutta are happy and proud to be involved, and although we have just one American on our team, we too send our encouragement and support to the individuals serving in the US military, and of course those stationed in our Canadian Military as well. After all, showing support the men and women who put themselves in harm's way for the safety of others should have little to do with politics, nationality or any other affiliation.

If you share this sentiment and have a few moments to spare, head on over to the contest site and start writing your letter.   

Can you beleive it has been a year since the first Launch Party Vancouver?

Back then, Strutta Founders Maura and Danny, along with Layer 7's Dimitri Sirota, wanted to create an event that would bring together folks from all sectors of our burgeoning tech industry. Vancouver didn't have much in the way of opportunities to celebrate the exciting products that are launched locally.  Over 120 people came to the first event at Section 3 in Yaletown, and the turnout has only grown at each subsequent event.  

Well, it's been a year, and tomorrow is LPV5, the fifth in the series. Not surprisingly, it's the biggest one yet. Vancouver Mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson is scheduled to address the partygoers, with an announcement that includes the launch of a new tech platform he's launching.

For the companies that are demoing at the event, the stakes have been raised too. The six companies featured at the event are also competing in a contest (powered by Strutta, if you please) to win $1000, with the winner chosen by a panel of VIP judges. You too can vote, and the "people's choice" gets luxury box seats to a Vancouver Giants game. Watch for the videos to launch tomorrow morning (Thursday, Sept 18th) and cast your vote. Winners will be announced early next week.

In the year since the first event, Launch Party Vancouver has featured over 30 startups from Vancouver, and a few out-of-town "party crashers" as well. The second event was co-hosted by Twiistup, a sister event in Los Angeles. At LPV4, Techvibes hosted a startup job fair before the main event, and we at Strutta were among the companies showing off their new software.

For Launch Party Vancouver, there are no plans of letting up- the sixth event is already penciled into the calendar for November, and it's never too early to sign up to be among the companies featured.

Hope to see you tomorrow night!

In November of 2005, two dudes in white lab coats and protective glasses dropped pieces of Mentos (the fresh maker!) into bottles of Diet Coke. Geysers of soda erupted from the bottles, video cameras recorded the action and the resulting video of "Experiment #10" was just the start of what can only be described as an internet phenomenon.

By the time they had reached Experiment #137 (above), kids were already buying Mentos by the handful and making their own fountains and rockets the world over.

To their credit, Mentos was thrilled. In spite of early indifference, Coke managed to finally come around to appreciating the new life its brand had found on the web as well. This serves as just one example among many of regular folks using the internet to discuss, evangelize or even criticize brands and products, of their own will. Like anything new and exciting (not to mention cheap or free), advertisers were scrambling to find a way to generate viral successes of their own, sometimes with undesired results. 

When done right though, advertising that comes directly from fans of brands is the very best kind. It's the new media equivalent of a testimonial, but also proof that the creator was dedicated enough to put a considerable amount of time into creating it. To say that this kind of advertising is more genuine and convincing than the status quo would be something of an understatement.

New business models are even springing up as a result of this exciting trend. Take for example Adhack, a local startup based around "people powered advertising," offering advertisers a chance to access the talents of all manners of small creative agencies and home-based media creators for considerably less expense than a traditional mainstream media model. 

To recap some of the more successful examples of User Generated Advertising, we talked to Adhack's Founder, James Sherrett via email, who pointed us to a few successes in this space. 

James' picks:

1. Doritos. (Also currently running a UK contest on YouTube)

Their main web presence is now dedicated to "Snack Strong Productions," which is all about user generated ads, and a conest that could see those ads run during the most expensive airtime on North American network TV. As James notes, "They've bought Super Bowl ad space for 3 consecutive years for user-generated ads." 

2. Heinz. Their "Top This" TV Challenge is now in Round Two, having already chosen a winner from the first round.

3. Utilikilts. Not the biggest brand in this list, and something of a niche product (kilts for everyday wear!) but they've been accepting and running "Mock-u-mercials" since their beginning. As James notes, "It's not trendy for them, it's just the way they roll." They've got loads of them too; a great exmaple of brand affinity among their customers.

4. Apple. Nick Haley's iPod Touch commercial went from fan-generated "for fun" project to being aired on TV, seemingly overnight. Haley explains it best: "I loved the look of the new iPod Touch, found this music, and thought it was perfect for it. I made a commercial using material from apple.com and editing in Apple's Final Cut Pro." 

Watch it in full, complete with YouTubey grey messiness at the front: 

Our thanks to James for these suggestions, and a tip to would-be advertisers thinking of using this model: Make sure that the video player you choose to use for your submissions has an option to embed the commercials on sites other than your own! That is, after all, the point of all of this, is it not? 

If you have more examples of a great fan-built advertising or media submission contests, or if you just want to share your thoughts on the above, feel free to do so in the comments. 

*James Sherrett photo by Kris Krug.

Do you remember checking under the cap of your pop bottle to see if you'd won?

Those contests and promotions did exactly what they were meant to do; they motivated you to open the bottle. But like mass media advertising, the system was flawed, in that it couldn't be accurately measured. Sody pop companies could tell you exactly how many lid liners were returned for prizes, but not how many were checked overall. I know this, because as a young convenience store employee, I would fill the slow time checking under the caps of the returned empties in hopes of winning a cash prize or a Dr. Pepper sweatband. Worse yet, they didn't know how many went unchecked; junked or recycled without a last minute intervention by a greedy gas jockey with dirty fingers.

Big soda pop has adapted though, and now has the wisdom to use the bottle caps to drive traffic to the web, where every unique contest enterer can be counted and graphed, thereby giving the advertiser a better idea of the reach and success of a promotion. Now, with this new "social web," technology has lowered the barriers to making user-generated content (can we rename that term, please? Srsly) a part of the DNA of contests. Photo contests, video submissions and countless other media-related entries (design your own pop bottle, anyone?) have taken the place of the "25 words or less on a plain sheet of paper" of old.

With this new territory comes new challenges as well. Not everyone has the know-how to submit a video to an online contest, but opting into a web form and casting a vote is easy enough, if the motivation is there. Ensuring that only humans have the ability to submit to these promotions presents another problem- if the system is gamed by bots, then the integrity of the promotion is comprimised. 

Building a platform for these kinds of promotions that satisfies all those needs is the hard part. How does an advertiser best open themselves up to user-submitted media, online voting and marketing of its contests? What technologies should they use, and what kinds of steps are necessary for the legal and fraud prevention side? How will hosting be handled? Voting, judges or random draws? And how can you "get it on Facebook and the blogs?" 

Strutta's upcoming feature-set release aims to answer all of those questions right out of the gate, and here's why we're confident that advertisers and marketers will embrace it:

(Because) There is a lot more value in having some level of lasting engagement with the people opting into your promotions, especially when they are willing to create media on your behalf in order to participate.

The finalists in a photo competition, for example, would make for a more interesting and deeper site visit experience for an entrant than having no reason to check back with a contest site at all. It's with this in mind I'm sure that companies started asking us about when Strutta would be made available for them to structure promotions on their own terms. We listened, and now that technology is just a few short weeks away from launching.

If you're curious about what's "under the hood" of this latest release, I'll explore that (and touch upon a few feature details) in an upcoming post. If you have questions you'd like to ask now, feel free to hit up the commnent form below or email me directly: jordan[at]strutta.com.

Image source: Pop bottles by Dawn-ny.