In the world of PR, contests can get dry. The challenge always is to land a campaign that will give your client useful information customer demographics, potential business leads while also coming up with something that has zip.
Yet Phase Two Strategies, a high-tech PR house in San Francisco, was able to hit that perfect mix when it designed an online PR contest for its client, computer software company Claris, Santa Clara, Calif., as a follow-up to the December 1995 launch of FileMaker Pro 3.0 (FMP 3.0). Recently, the company was named the runner up in the "Best PR on the Internet" category at the 6th Annual Marcom Awards.
The success of the PR campaign is borne out in the contest results: more than 13,000 people visited the Database Challenge area on Claris Web site, http://www.claris.com, and more than 1,100 registered for the contest. The winning prize, given out in June, was an $8,000 enticement: a trip around the world for two.
The total budget for the campaign was $80,000, which included agency fees, setting up the contest online, prize monies and judges stipends.
"This was the first Claris challenge we put together that was a cyber promotion," said Kevin Mallon, PR manager for Claris. "The key thing about the contest was it wasn t as simple or unqualifying as filling out a form and entering. Entrants had to buy the product or use the product to enter the contest."
The contest, which was introduced online in March 1996, called for entrants to create a database application in Claris flagship FMP 3.0 for use in one of decade-old Claris key marketing segments: Small Business, World Wide Web, Education, Enterprise and Home Computing. The segments represent Claris target demographic and about 70 percent of the U.S. workforce.
Coupled with the immense audience it could cozy up to, the clincher of the campaign was that users could download a free version (not a full working database) to enter the contest so they didn t have to go out and buy the $199 product.
Claris had a sure hook because FMP is so "ubiquitous," said Chris Boehlke, president of Phase Two. But mostly the thrust of the campaign, dubbed "For How the Real World Works," was to reach potential customers in the home business environment.
"The purpose was to put this database in the hands of small business owners," said Boehlke. "The audience for Claris is often the novice technical person, and the design of this PR campaign was to show that this was a product for anyone."
The two main objectives of the program were:
- To gather compelling FMP applications in all five of Claris s target market segments and to generate "interesting plications on the Windows 95 platform that could be used for publicity and other marketing efforts; and
- To gather applications that would build visibility and a positive image for Claris.
- But the benefits went far beyond that, according to Claris and Phase Two executives. Based on the breadth and make-up of the campaign, Claris:
- Continued the momentum surrounding the product launch;
- Was positioned as an "Internet savvy company";
- Gathered customer information, including details given during registration (such as names and addresses; type of computer used; and speed of Internet connection) by potential and existing customers;
- Promoted product visibility; and
- Provided sales leads.
Part of what made the contest work is that Boehlke has an extensive background in hosting contests which, when juxtaposed with the nature of Claris business, seems like an unlikely fit. For three years, Boehlke worked on the National Sandwich Idea contest, hosted by the restructured Wheat/Flour Institute, Washington, D.C., and it provided her with insight into what makes a contest fly. (She s also headed contests for other packaged good companies while working with Burson Marsteller and Edelman.)
"Contests, by nature, can get stale in two ways: one, if it s an annual event, it can get old; and two, if it s not interesting, meaning it doesn t have a value that can change someone s life for the better which is usually what happens with contests which are promotions and nothing else. A true PR contest event is one that has substance and content and helps the participant see what the benefit to their life is."
The worth of the contest for Claris was also grounded in the fact that promotions Phase Two has headed for Claris, in the four years it has worked with the software company, have all had a "case study" twist. So, having users submit legitimate not theoretical ways of using FMP added real-life usages to their case-history file.
"It s difficult to say if it caused a sale spike, but we do know this: the users had to get their hands dirty, they had to use our product and test their idea to enter the contest," said Mallon. "In the future we may use these solutions, these ideas, for demo [demonstration] ware to showcase our software."
"This is a contest that worked," said Boehlke, "because it sparked the imagination but was also engaging and worthwhile for the user to be a part of. We believed that our hook was once they used it, they were going to like it." (Chris Boehlke, 415/772-8 400; Kevin Mallon, 408/987-7227)