Donna's Promo Talk - Promotional Marketing that Creates Excitement and Gets Results

KFC's Super Bowl Promotion: Cause or Ambush Marketing?

Another brand has tapped into the excitement of Super Bowl XXLII with an online promotion that also includes a huge philanthropic offer. KFC is spotlighting its Hot Wings menu with this marketing first: If a player or celebrity performer "opens his heart and flutters his hot wings" in an impromptu chicken dance during Super Bowl XXLII, KFC will donate $260,000 to charity in the name of that person. KFC's criteria is for the chicken dance performance to include at least three seconds of "wing flapping".

"Talk about an offer worth showing off your Hot Wings for: this could be a great dance performance benefiting charity," said James O'Reilly, chief marketing officer for KFC. "This will continue KFC's tradition of marketing first promotions. We really hope someone shows the world his hot wings."

Now since it being the Super Bowl with the championship at stake, never mind that the Patriots are hoping to make history, I kinda doubt we're going to see a player do a chicken dance in the end zone. A player could possibly draw an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for it. However, weirder things have happened. KFC is supposedly contacting agents of offensive players for the New York Giants and New England Patriots who are most likely to score in order to encourage them to step up and dance like a chicken. It may be more likely that one of the performers during the half time show would try and pull this off. 

KFC's online interactive promotion component consists of a consumer- generated content contest titled Show Off Your "Hot Wings.  Back on January 17th KFC started inviting football fans to upload their own chicken dance videos to this promotional website. The best rendition chosen by a panel of judges would win the ultimate big game party valued at $4,250 which includes a spread of KFC complete with the new spicy and crunchy Hot Wings, a flat panel television, a limo to escort guests, cheerleaders to fire up the crowd and even a cleaning service for post-party tidying.

The winner was just announced this past Monday, Jan. 28th. Congratulations to Ryan L. from Superior, Wisconsin. Check out Ryan's chicken dance here:

You'll have to crash Ryan's party if you're anywhere near Superior, Wisconsin. Anyhow, you can check out all the video entries on their website as well.

Now KFC is not an official sponsor of, or affiliated or associated with, the National Football League, the big game, or any other football-related entity in any way. I don't believe that they will be one of the advertisers during the game either. They are just another brand that is capitalizing on the event without paying the big bucks. The NFL does not appreciate this and this FanNation article states that they've called it a "textbook case of ambush marketing 101".

Emily Steel wrote an interesting article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Monday titled "The Super Bowl Blitz Expands in Online Arena". Not only does she write about the fact that online promotions are now a great way for advertisers to extend their investment with an integrated message, but also how non-advertisers are tapping in to it as well.

Anyhow, if you see a player of performer flapping his or her arms like crazy in what looks like a chicken dance on national television during the Super Bowl, you'll know why. It should at least be good party conversation for you.

Pepsi to Launch Biggest Promotion Ever During Super Bowl

This past weekend was our first one without football in quite a while. Its always a sad reminder that the season is over...for most of us anyhow. The Patriots and the Giants are the only two teams left with now less than a week away from playing in Super Bowl XLII. The hype for this big game and the marketing associated with it just keeps on rising, so I thought I might as well continue writing about it.

Another PepsiCo brand that will be joining Frito-Lay and its Doritos Brand with advertising time during this year's Super Bowl is Pepsi who is planning to use the event to launch its biggest promotion ever. Justin Timberlake will star in a Pepsi Stuff commercial called “Magnetic Attraction” filled with him performing a number of wild stunts showing how every sip of Pepsi gets you closer to the music and “stuff” you want.

“Justin Timberlake is one of the biggest stars in the world, what better way to launch our biggest promotion ever than with him on the Super Bowl,” said Cie Nicholson, SVP and chief marketing officer, Pepsi-Cola North America.

The Pepsi Stuff interactive promotion is a partnership with Amazon.com where consumers can download DRM-free MP3 music. Four billion specially marked Pepsi packages will allow people to collect points and redeem them for music from Amazon MP3 that can be played on virtually any digital portable device (including iPods), organized in any music management application, or burned to a CD.

“We are excited to team up with Pepsi and reward millions of Pepsi Stuff participants with high-quality DRM-free music downloads from major and independent labels, playable on virtually any device, and an easy downloading experience that doesn't require special software,” said Bill Carr, Amazon.com Vice President for Digital Music and Movies.

Beginning February 1, consumers purchasing Pepsi products can “bank” their points on PepsiStuff.com and redeem them for prizes including the music downloads from Amazon MP3, as well as electronics and apparel. Five points earn consumers one MP3 song download from the libraries of EMI Music, SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, Warner Music Group and tens of thousands of other music labels.

“Pepsi Stuff gives consumers choices – many choices: from the prizes they select, to the music they want to hear, to the device they want to play it on,” said Cie Nicholson, SVP and chief marketing officer, Pepsi-Cola North America. “We're also broadening the prize pool to include Amazon Unbox TV downloads, electronics, apparel, DVDs and CDs. We're offering up to $1 billion in prizes, making this the largest promotion we've ever done.”

Participants can also enter a daily sweepstakes for the chance to win trips to events like the Super Bowl, the MLB All-Star game and the Daytona 500, as well as for cash and many other big prizes.  Consumers may sign up now to be reminded when the promotion begins at pepsistuff.com.

Last week Pepsi starting promoting the campaign with a 60-foot inflatable robot monster that could be seen on the streets of New York City including at Penn Station and then stopping in Times Square. The “Pepsi Stuff Monster” used street teams that laid down the monster’s “tracks” (large robot footprints) along with giveaways that included CDs, DVDs, hats, shirts, belt buckles and many envelopes containing access codes for the music downloads.

The Pepsi Stuff Monster is now in Glendale AZ, where it is part of the Super Bowl Week entertainment set up around the University of Phoenix Stadium. An animated version will appear in a Pepsi TV spot launching some time after the Super Bowl where it will show up anywhere people are drinking Pepsi to hand out free music and gear.

Zoom Media and Marketing executed the New York City Monster experiential part of the promotion. The advertising campaign, which includes TV, radio and outdoor, was created by BBDO NY and TracyLocke, Pepsi's promotional agency of record, also has been instrumental in the development and ongoing execution of the program. For a campaign this huge the integration into all communications is key to its success and it appears that Pepsi has gotten all it's team players on board to do just that.

Oreo Grabs Manning Brothers for DSRL Interactive Promotional Campaign

Well I first have to share some exciting news with you before I begin today's post. I’ve been accepted as a contributing author with ADOTAS... a publication focused on the online advertising and media industry. It features a daily email newsletter that reaches over 100,000 advertising professionals monthly. I will have a monthly article that will run on the 2nd Tuesday of each month beginning Feb. 12th. My focus will be similar to this blog...current interactive promotions.

In the meantime they invited me to submit an article so I sent them the Doritos Super Bowl post I recently wrote and it ran yesterday as the top feature! Here’s the link. I'd like to welcome Adotas readers to Donna's Promo Talk.

Speaking of the Super Bowl, did anyone see the ad that ran last night featuring both of the Manning brothers? I was wondering how quickly a brand was going to get these two famous quarterbacks to appear in together. I didn't think it would be Oreo though!

Now we have the young Eli Manning premiering in his first ad campaign right before he makes his debut in Super Bowl XLII. Then we have last year's Super Bowl winning quarterback, Payton Manning, who's become a TV celebrity over the past year, competing with his brother to see who licks their Oreo quicker! I'm not sure sure if I like seeing these two tough guys licking cookies! Watch the ad here.

Anyhow, the folks from Kraft have created this Double Stuf Racing League (DSRL) - a fierce competition that involves twisting, licking and dunking your Oreo cookie. Visitors to the DSRL promotional website are invited by the Mannings to join the league and then try and out-lick them through an interactive instant win promotion. 10 grand prize winners will receive a trip to New Orleans this July for a chance to compete against Payton and Eli in a DSRL match. The one that wins the match will receive $10,000!

Well I played the game and I wasn't an instant winner. However, once registered you can come back to the website and play once a day up until 5/21/08. There's also another instant-win game which is giving away 2,000 Official DSLR Training Kits that include a cooler, two milk glasses, a DSLR jersey and a headband. This game is open till 12/01/08. There's lots of other "stuf" to do on this interactive website to help you get good at licking Oreos. You can even create a "Yobble" (you'll have to visit the website to find out what a Yobble is).

This DSRL interactive promotional campaign is the first of its kind for the Oreo brand which was created by Draftfcb New York. Besides the website, the ad campaign features the entire Manning family, with parents Archie and Olivia supporting their sons' decision to become "two sport" athletes. I learned that a series of teaser ads kicked off back in December along with an unbranded teaser website. The Mannings' "second sport", the DSRL, was revealed online Jan. 9 and in TV ads during Peyton's playoff game on Jan. 13.

I think it's a great campaign, however, it's really going to be hard for me now to watch Eli in the SuperBowl without that image of him licking an Oreo coming into my head!

Sunsilk Seeking Global Life Can't Wait Moments

Super Bowl XLII isn't just going to include football, beer and snack foods this year. It's also going to be the platform to launch a major worldwide promotional campaign from Unilever that's aimed at women!

I've written quite a few posts on Unilever's Dove brand and their Campaign for Real Beauty. Now the company is showcasing it's Sunsilk hair care brand with a little help from three very well-known ladies, Madonna, Shakira and Marilyn Monroe. The Life Can't Wait campaign will kick-off with a TV spot which is slated to run during the Super Bowl's 4th quarter's two minute warning break on Feb. 3. The spot includes film clips of these three female icons that depicts them living their lives to the fullest, making life happen and seizing the moment. It hopes to inspire all women to do the same and directs them to the new promotional website LifeCan'tWait to share their stories online. Watch a preview of the ad here:

The campaign will roll-out worldwide following its Super Bowl debut, premiering in three continents and fifteen countries including India, Brazil, Thailand and Mexico. "We're proud to unveil a powerful global campaign that features three truly inspirational icons," said Stan Cook, Vice President of U.S. Hair Care Operations, Unilever. "They're celebrated not only for their accomplishments but for living with passion and urgency as well as having the confidence to take leaps of faith -- with their lives and their looks. Our hope is to inspire a new generation of women to do the same."

Starting Feb.1st, women can visit the lifecantwait website and post their "Life Can't Wait" moments...which are defined as living life with spontaneity, courage and without regret. The hope is in ultimately creating a global network of women who are making life happen and inspiring each other in the process.  A selection of global winners will be chosen from those entering this consumer-generated content contest. Those that are deemed the most inspiring will then become international Sunsilk icons. One of those winners will represent the U.S. in this global campaign.

"This contest allows girls to be part of a global make-it-happen movement," said Cook. "It gives them the opportunity to have their voice heard around the world while sharing with women everywhere how our campaign is personally-relevant to them."

In the U.S. "Life Can't Wait" will have a presence on marquee billboards in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago as well as a continued TV schedule. It will also be supported online at key homepage websites such as AOL, TMZ.COM and MySpace.

The "Life Can't Wait" campaign was created by Desgrippes Gobe, Paris, which pulled from research taken by a survey conducted in six countries with 3,000 women which revealed that twenty-something women find having "good" hair a trigger for seizing opportunities. This article from Advertising Age's Jack Neff gives some insights into Unilever's decision to use Desgrippes Gobe, the first ever "design" agency to have an ad appear on the Super Bowl.

We'll have to wait and see what the buzz will be with this ad as well as the interactive promotional website. So let me know what you think. Unilever ran a heart-tugging 45:sec spot during Super Bowl XL back in 2006 that helped to launch their Campaign for Real Beauty. It appears that they think it's time for the guy brands to move over and make more room for the females! I say bring it on.

Coors Lite Super Bowl XLII Fan Video Contest

Well we're now down to the final two teams that will face each other in Super Bowl XLII on Feb. 3rd in Phoenix. The NY Giants beat the odds yesterday by defeating the Green Bay Packers on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field. They're the only team now standing in the way of the New England Patriots who are looking to make history with a perfect season.

The AFC and NFC championship games are usually more exciting than the Super Bowl and both games yesterday were pretty good. The Chargers put up a decent fight against the Patriots, although they couldn't score a touchdown. You can't win championships without touchdowns. However, it was the Giants/Packers game that went into overtime in sub-zero temperatures that showed us what a real football game is.

Now many of us would still like to go to the Super Bowl and today's the last day to enter the Coors Light Super Bowl XLII "Who Wants It More?" contest for a chance at tickets. Like the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest I just wrote this post on, Coors Brewing Company is also sponsoring a consumer-generated contest tied into the Super Bowl. This interactive promotion invites football fans to submit a video describing why they deserve to win a trip to the Super Bowl. The contest is separated into five entry periods with a grand prize winner for each period. A judging panel has been reviewing all submitted videos and picking 5 finalists for each entry period. The public then has the chance to vote on which of the five finalists should be the lucky fan to win the trip to the Super Bowl.

All videos must be original and mention either Coors Light or Coors the Banquet Beer. No NFL teams, coaches, players (past or current), owners or celebrities are allowed in the videos. The judges are choosing the finalists based on originality and creativity, how well they depict the fan's passion for the game and how well they highlight Coors beer.

So right now visitors to the website can vote on the finalists for Week 3 which for some reason they only have these three videos posted:

• Stephen Bru - A Super Bowl plea in which he describes himself as "what football is all about". He's a hard working, simple man who hasn't taken a vacation in four years.
• Lynessalov - Lynne jumps out of her chair and starts yelling like a crazy lady at the camera - "pick me to go"
• kdm3163 - A Super Bowl adventure with Coors Light that includes a bottle of beer edited into various scenes

Honestly I don't really like any of these videos. The winning video from week one was a young woman from Buffalo sitting out in the snow in her Coors Light bathing suit. Week 2's winner was "American J" which he explains why an Average American guy like himself should win the tickets. Neither are very interesting, but the guys obviously must have liked the girl in her bathing suit.

A separate bonus prize of a Super Bowl trip for two will be awarded to videos that contain either no language or voices or only in Spanish. These entries qualify for both the weekly prize as well as the special Hispanic award.

Coors is the Official Beer sponsor of the NFL, but you won't see any Coors ads during the Super Bowl commercial breaks. Anheuser-Busch will continue to be the exclusive beer advertiser during the broadcast and I bet we'll see at least one spot with those famous Clydesdales (here's one ad from 2006). This article that appeared in the ClickZ Network quoted Coors spokesperson, Jenny Volanakis, in which she said "Regardless of what A-B is doing as far as owning the Super Bowl, we look at our NFL sponsorship being beneficial for the entire calendar year. It's a way for consumers in their own voice to tell us why they get to go to the Super Bowl and interacting with our brand in a meaningful way."

So, we can check back to the Coors website and see who the final winning fans going to the Super Bowl will be. Unlike Doritios, Coors doesn't have any plans to run any of these winning videos from this online promotion on TV and from what I've seen so far, that was a very good decision.

Is Doritos Super Bowl XLII Contest Another Winner?

We now have just about two weeks left before the big game, Super Bowl XLII, taking place this year on Feb. 3rd in Phoenix. So if you're a football fan or not, just being an American means that you get a chance to partake in this national event in one way or another. Whether it's being at the game, at a party, watching it on TV or just participating in one on the many promotions that exist, no one can escape the opportunity to get involved if they wish. This then begs the question from any marketer and advertiser, what other venue enables us to engage with such a huge, diverse audience?

So I asked myself, what better topic is there in the marketing industry to talk about right now then the Super Bowl? I decided I might as well join the hype that has already begun building (and will most likely continue on till at least the day after the game) and chime in.

With that decision made, Doritos of course is my obvious choice as a brand's promotional campaign to start discussing. Dorito's has now already gone down in history with their Super Bowl promotional marketing campaign from last year as the one that really got the user-generated content craze going on a mass scale. Most of us marketers have been following this trend throughout 2007 and have seen this particular promotion featured in just about every presentation and/or article done on this subject.

To back track one more time, at the end of 2006 more than 1,000 videos were submitted to the Dortio's "Crash the Super Bowl" online contest. From these entries two :30 spots actually ran during commercial breaks of the Super Bowl and the "Live the Flavor" spot was awarded the grand prize.  Recent news announced that the guys that created this winning ad actually entered the competition to help get their company, Five Point Productions, off the ground. As of today the company is reported doing extremely well and they apparently no longer have to solicit work. So, if you'd like more background on who they are and the events that transpired a year ago you can visit their contest blog as well as their website to learn more.

Now Dorito's has come back this year with a new "Crash the Super Bowl" user-generated contest which I originally wrote about in one of my Top Ten Consumer-Generated Contest Promotion posts back in mid-October. This year they've focused on music and asked people to submit video and audio clips of themselves performing an original song for a chance to have it aired during the Super Bowl XLII broadcast. Beginning back on Oct. 25th entries could be submitted through the Snack Strong promotional site or through MySpace. Then on Dec. 10th the judges selected the top 10 entries and visitors were invited to vote on these semi-finalists to determine the three final performers.

Get this widget!

Many entered this year and now only three remain which are: Kina Grannis, 22, of Austin, TX, “Message  From Your Heart,”; Landon Austin, 19, of Dallas, “Waitin"; and Nivla, 27, featuring P. Oberoi of New York, “Be Easy”. Each will receive $10,000 and a trip to Phoenix to attend the Dorito's Super Bowl party. Voting is going on now till Jan. 27th on the Snack Strong promotional site which is supported by MySpaceTV.com. The final winner who has the most votes will be revealed when Frito-Lay plays their 60: music video during a commercial break on Super Bowl XLII. Besides the airtime the grand prize winner will also receive a recording contract.

I'm still not sure if the user-generated content promotional trend has reached its peak or not, but it sure has continued to grow all throughout 2007. I keep hearing about one new interactive promotional contest after another that involves inviting someone to create something and submit it for a chance to win. The majority of these contests choose a winner based on a degree of individual skill or uniqueness whether it's writing a song, creating a video, uploading a photograph, composing a themed essay, whipping up a creative, new recipe, or showcasing some degree of talent.

So we'll just have to watch Super Bowl XLII on Feb. 3rd and see who will receive this year's fame ...and I'm not talking about Tom Brady and company either.

OfficeMax's Elf Yourself Reaches 193 Million Visitors

Before we get too far away from discussing this season's holiday promotions, I wanted to report back to you on the final stats I received on the highly successful Elf Yourself.com viral marketing campaign created for OfficeMax. I first wrote this post on the promotion at the beginning of December and then in my latest post on it I shared with you the mid-campaign results. At that time they were hoping to reach 100 million visitors by the end of the campaign.

Well Elf Yourself was an even bigger success then what they hoped for. They actually reached 193 million visitors! Almost twice the anticipated amount. Beth McDowell, who's working with EVB in San Francisco, the company that created the campaign along with partner agency Toy in New York,  shared with me the following:

ElfYourself.com ended on January 2, 2008 and attracted a remarkable number of consumers to the OfficeMax holiday site this season. Next year, there are no definite plans, but after this year's success, it's quite possible Elf Yourself will return for the 2008 holiday season. Below are the final totals for ElfYourself.com.

Elf Yourself 2007 (11/20/07 to 1/2/08)
- Over 193 million people visited the site
- Over 123 million elves were created
- 60 elves were created per second at its peak
- Users spent a combined average of 2,600 years on the site
- Ranked #51 most visited website on the web (HitWise Intelligence)
- Ranked #1 "Movers & Shakers" (Alexa Rankings)
- Featured on CNN American Morning, ABC World News, Good Morning America, TODAY Show, TNT Sportscast, Fox News, TBS & Rosie O'Donnell's Blog.

AdWeek's Brian Morrissey wrote this article last week on viral marketing which included Elf Yourself, but he didn't have these final numbers yet. In the article he states that the secret to the success of this campaign was in keeping it simple and I can't agree with him more. Brian's got this quote in his article from Bob Thacker, svp of marketing at OfficeMax "Our lives are already complicated. I can't imagine anything online wants to be complicated. Eighty-year-old women are sending these out and 8-year-olds are doing it.

Case in point is the experience I had this past New Year's weekend while visiting my parents, who by the way don't have Internet access in their new home. We had gone over to my sister's house and she showed them the Elf I did of myself which they thought was hysterical and they wanted to make some.

So, we all sat in front of my sister's computer for the next hour or so making up more elves that included my parents, my sisters and their husbands, as well as my aunt and uncle. We then sent a copy to my aunt and uncle (who have Internet access, but not too sure of this email thing), got them on the phone and directed them on how to open the email and then got to listen in as they watched it. They loved it and proceeded to send it on to their kids (my cousins) and so on. Next thing I knew I was receiving emails from several upset relatives wanting to know "Donna, what happened to the elves?" because the website had been taken down.

It's anyone's guess what interactive promotion will be famous next holiday season. For now anyhow the Elves are going to be hard to beat.

Kimberly-Clark's Innovative Sweepstakes Widget

Kimberly-Clark is partnering up again this year with ABC's "The View" with a promotion designed to help consumers maintain a healthy and happy home. The Kimberly-Clark Room-A-Day Giveaway Sweepstakes officially gets underway today which will award 16 lucky winners $25,000 each for a room makeover. National parenting expert and Club Mom blogger, Stacy DeBroff, on behalf of Kimberly-Clark, will help launch the program on "The View' starting Jan. 15th.

This is truly a 360 campaign in which Kimberly-Clark is bringing back its dancing packages and integrating them into content appearing on "The View", at retail, in TV, radio and print advertising, in all PR materials and online. Plus they're really engaging audiences with an interactive promotional component that features a dynamic new website along with cutting edge digital technology that's enabled the first sweepstakes enabled widget.

(Please Note: I originally had the widget embedded right here in this post, but moved it to this new page instead. The reason being is that the widget automatically plays and the audio would come on immediately each time you visit my blog.)

Anyhow, I think this widget is amazing. Not only does it offers the user the interactive fun of being able to choose both a specific dance along with where the packages dance (I like the Abby Road location), but it also represents the very first time a widget has built-in functionality allowing viewers to directly enter a sweepstakes. This is truly innovative and a application that should help take sweepstakes to the next level (Sweeps 3.0?)

Now once the user is registered it remembers their name and lets them know how much time is left till they can enter the sweepstakes again with a digital clock countdown (they have to be logged-in). Users can enter the sweepstakes once a day until March 7th for a chance to win 1 of the 16 $25,000 room makeover prizes, so this is a very convenient way for them to do this.

You'll notice also that the widget complies with all the promotional marketing rules and regulations and includes a copy of the official rules as well as FAQ's, their privacy policy and terms and conditions. It has a viral marketing component in which it lets the user send it to a friend and also to post it to a variety of social media platforms. They've made it as easy as possible by including a menu of 20 different choices, some that I've never even heard of!

TracyLocke is the agency that worked with Kimberly-Clark to conceive and develop this campaign . Joanna Peña-Bickley, Vice President, Interactive at TracyLocke has been writing about the campaign on her blog, in which she says "Through the use of a distributed media approach our Dancing Packages can appear on any HTML page that our core audience wants to post it to. Designed to create buzz and generate sweepstakes entries, the Dancing Package widget facilitates portable content targeted to hard-to-reach Millennials and other social networkers."

Besides the widget, consumers can enter the sweepstakes directly online and through traditional tear-pads found at retail. Then they can watch "The View" were the winners will be announced.  The first  winner is scheduled for Jan. 28th. Check out Joanna's blog to see a clip of The View's Sherri Shepherd being chased by Dancing Packages in Central Park.

So try out the widget and let me know what you think. Joanna would love the feedback. Now I can't wait to create a widget like this for a sweepstakes.

Samsung Promotes Gagets with Consumer-Generated Contests

The 2008 Annual International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) got underway in Las Vegas on Sunday in which 140,000 people are expected to attend this week. CES has evolved into more than just a trade show and has become a true marketing event.  It's not just for geeks, sales people and buyers anymore either, but now includes many of us involved in the world of advertising and marketing who would love to also be there.

I couldn't make it this year but it's pretty easy to follow along online. You can visit the official CES website "were entertainment, technology and business converge" and review the exhibitors who will feature all the latest technology gadgets and devices. Also you can find out about all the great new products that will be announced but not available for purchase for awhile.

You can also follow along each day through CES Straight Talk, the official blog of CES. They're using technology online like crazy this year so not only are they using lots of photos, but video seems to be the preference. You also have your choice of grabbing three different widgets to stay up to date - Twitter, Flicker and YouTube.

Samsung was one of the show's largest exhibitors and a brand that's been developing many consumer-generated interactive promotions this year. They're currently promoting their MX10 flash memory camcorder with Your "Baby Love," a consumer-generated content contest featuring Pussycat Dolls' lead singer Nicole Scherzinger. The promotion invites users to "belt out their own rendition of Baby Love" and upload their video for a chance to win an MX10, a Samsung 40-inch LCD HDTV or $500 cash.

San Diego-based Brickfish is the viral marketing agency that developed the campaign and hosts it here on their website were visitors can upload, view and vote on the entries. Brickfish's platform helps to facilitate viral marketing by allowing visitors to post comments and share their entries via email and IMs, as well as distribution across sites like Facebook, MySpace and Xanga.

A grand prize winner will be selected from the top 100 entries with the highest scores and win a 40" Samsung LCD HDTV and an MX10. The first place winner will be the entry with the next highest score and receives the MX10. Second place winner will be selected from the top 100 most viral entries and will win a Samsung P2 Portable Media Player. The most viral entry that gets the most attention across the internet will win $500 cash or a scholarship.

The MX10 was featured in Scherzinger's "Baby Love" video so this promotion ties in nicely and builds on the partnership. "Being featured in Nicole Scherzinger's video for 'Baby Love' was great. and we are excited to integrate music lovers into the experience," said Reid Sullivan, vice president of marketing for Samsung Electronics America. "UGC is a great tool to help us engage with consumers at a new level."

Samsung Mobile just completed The Juke Box Hero consumer-generated contest to promote The Juke, their new stylish music phone. The first half of the campaign called for independent artists to submit a musical performance via YouTube for a chance to win $10,000. Instead of using the traditional YouTube voting however, the next stage invited consumers to make their own Juke Box Hero playlist from the music videos submitted. The band or artists used in the most playlists would become the Juke Box Hero and win the grand prize. Those who created playlists were automatically entered in a sweepstakes for a chance to win prizes including a home theater system and a really cool jukebox.

Ann Marie Mathis, Interactive Creative Director for Cheil Communications who was working with Samsung on this project said that "We took it up a notch by allowing users to share the videos and include their own playlist through a widget." You can see the widget on Ann Marie's blog, What's Web 3.0? and stay tuned for the Juke Box Hero to be announced soon.

Dove Seeking Consumer-Generated TV Ads for Oscars

Since I started off the year with my first post about Dove and their Campaign for Real Beauty I thought I would also update you on their latest consumer-generated content contest. The second annual Dove Cream Oil Body Wash Ad Contest is now under way which is seeking the next TV spot to run during a commercial break in the February 24th broadcast of the Oscars®. Last year I wrote a post of this interactive promotion which was one of my favorite. Over 1,000 women sent in videos and one woman, Lindsay Miller, submitted the winning entry which you can view here.

This year's promotional campaign features Amy Brenneman from the new TV series Private Practice as the spokesperson for the contest instead of Sarah Ramirez from Grey's Anatomy who started this off last year. Amy invites visitors to the site to create a 30 second video that captures the feeling of everyday luxury when you shower with Dove Cream Oil Body Wash. Amy has created an TV ad herself in order to inspire entries. Last time I checked there were 807 videos submitted and the number keeps increasing as I'm writing this. Visitors can view all the videos and rate them on a scale of one to five.

The contest ends this week on January 9th. At that time five finalists will be selected by a panel of judges based on originality and creativity, adherence to creative assignment and overall appeal. Each Finalist will receive $1,000.00, a welcome gift basket, spa day and a trip to Los Angeles for her and her guest for a private viewing of The Oscars®.

Then two finalists will be selected from these five by a combination of both another judging process and a public vote. Visitors to the Dove Cream Oil website will be eligible to vote sometime after January 23rd. The two grand prize winners will be revealed during the The Oscars® broadcast on February 24th. Those watching the show can then vote for their favorite of the two by texting or going online at oscars.com to cast their vote.

The marketing folks at Dove have also included on the site a downloadable $2.00 coupon for Dove Cream Oil Body Wash. I printed one out myself since I've used the product before and like it very much. Anyhow, it's going to be hard to beat Lindsay's ad from last year, but from a quick peek at some of the videos submitted this year it'll be close.