April 27th, 2009
How Many Winners Do You Really Need?
Often when clients approach us with a new concept, the age-old question “How many winners should we have?” comes up. It’s the debate of perceived odds of winning with oodles of prizes versus offering a single major knock-your-socks-off prize. Both effective? Yes. Which is better? Depends.
We’ve seen effective promotions on both sides of the coin. The answer to prize structure scope truly depends on promotion marketing objectives. At times, rich, comprehensive lower-level prize pools are not conveyed to the potential entrant due to space constraints within program advertisements, leaving only enough room for that major tagline. Alternatively, when we see the shiny new car or big cash prize being dangled, most of us say (and we can quote most winners saying) “…but I never win anything.” Although these major prizes draw the most attention, winning is just a faint glimmer of hope. Think of the masses of consumers waiting in line for the $150 million lotto ticket. The 10 million? Not so much. On the flip side, a “millions of prizes” header, including a 1-in-3 chance to win free fries, likely hits close to home. The reality of winning is tangible - it’s pretty easy to envision the win and taste the fries! If marketing budgets allow and communication materials can support “win a gazillion prizes” messaging, leveraging deep prize structures can be an effective tactic.
As in the fries case, QSRs can let their product work double duty with the cost-effective prizing and fulfillment at the ready. But here’s the catch. The glitzy prize will always be the main draw. While fries may make a lunch hour and temporarily satisfy, they’re not the life changing, knock-your-socks-off win that many hope for. At the end of the day when we peel off an instant win game piece or submit an entry, we’re all after one thing: it’s the shiny new car. If the main prize is big enough to perk consumers’ interest “How many winners should we have?” comes down to one thing: Can you afford to give away lots of other prizes knowing that everyone is entering to win the big one? If your costs are reasonable and you can fulfill seamlessly while offering a real chance to win, do it. Otherwise, save your money and go for the ‘big one’. It’s the carrot that everyone wants to win.
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Craig McDaniel says:
Having studied this questions for years and reviewing the entries patterns from over 100,000 members, I tend to see the best result come from the middle. I believe that having a good size Grand Prize is important. However if the budget is large enough, great results come when the first and or second prizes have a value over $1,000. For example, if you had a $25,000 prize budget, a $10,000 Grand Prize with one $5,000 First Prize and 10 $1,000 Second Prizes would be your best combination. The way my members would view this is they would have 12 chances of winning a big prize. The perceived odds of winning is what works with this combination.
The other option would be to do what the Miller Beer did recently. They gave as prizes 7,000 $25.00 Visa Gift Cards. Again, the perception of winning a cash prize is what was appealing. The feeling here is the odds are very good that “I” was going to win “cash” is the reason this promotion did so well.
Last, what really matters is the quality of the prize. Meaning that if you giveaway the same number of $15.00 valued t-shirts or $15.00 gift cards, the gift cards would receive 3 or more times the total entries if this was the only option for prizes. Bottom line, cash is king.
Craig McDaniel
aka – Mr. Sweepy™