I had a bit of a flash yesterday when I stumbled on this Rand McNally contest based on their new maps and I shared it with a couple of local organizations. Essentially I think it might be effective to co-op other people’s campaigns by creating and making your own entry.
So Rand McNally has this product with a contest: http://www.inevergetlost.com/
Here’s the deal. Building an online community is difficult to do and not generally as effective as connecting through established communities. Even building an entertaining online campaign itself is difficult to get moving. Locally, Experience Columbus had a fun idea with the “Not In Columbus” campaign but that cost a fair amount of money and (like so many good ideas) still drew a ton of negative remarks.
My idea is to actively seek out other organizations’ attempts at this type of user generated content to promote Columbus. Usually the draw that companies have that civic organizations do not is brand attraction and great prizes. This Rand McNally case is an easy one. Rand McNally wants people to show off how they are having fun as tourists using their new maps; they may even win a very nice motorscooter for it.
Why not show off how much fun you can have in Columbus by co-oping this campaign?. Why doesn’t EC or the Columbus Chamber or another interested civic group create an entry for this contest?
They could then use whatever video they create as a promotional tool on their own websites however the bigger thing would be to get it out to these other communities and sort of hijack the original promotion. Usually the winner of the promotion also gets their contribution added to a mass media type advertisement. In essence this would be product placement where Columbus is the product. Sort of a natural cross-pollination of products that are otherwise totally unrelated. Users of the primary product would then get this sense that the secondary product (in this case Columbus) is in on the secret, gets it, whatever you want to call that feeling.
Conceptually this would be very low cost, just a couple people and a flip video camera or something plus editing. There are tons of these contests coming out on a daily basis. The key is to find a way to make your entries fit into the boundaries of the contest at hand.
The guaranteed results would be:
You’ll learn some stuff
You’ll have fun
The hoped for result would be that:
People see Columbus as attractive through the eyes of a young couple.
Young people see the creative and unique side of Columbus.
Social Media types see that Columbus “gets it” by using digital opportunities in a unique and fun way.
These businesses hopefully get it too and see Columbus as being a place to consider for relocation or events thanks to their creative thinking (yes, I’m giving myself a compliment here).
You’ll have some content that you can also use in other ways.
And – Maybe you win some cool prizes that could then be given out as a part of your own promo events!
The worst result would be that:
You ate up a couple employees time chasing something that could’ve been really successful but wasn’t (hopefully you’ll have learned a good lesson as to why) so it is on to something else.
So that’s my thought, hopefully it is helpful to you.
