Ultimate

Success
Guide
TO RUNNING A USER GENERATED 

CONTEST CAMPAIGN

JUNE 2018
IT ND
ED CO

N
IO
SE
Section Page
Introduction 2

Goal Setting 8

Premise 10

Prize 13

Execution considerations 16

Selecting your platform 20

Legals 22

Privacy 24

Promotion 28

Fraud 32

Options for your data 36

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INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION
We are experts in running This is the second edition of our popular Ultimate Success Guide
contest campaigns. to running a user generated Contest Campaign. It is the most
comprehensive guide to running an online UGC contest
Contest campaigns help drive available. It now includes details on considerations to ensure you
awareness through user comply with legislation such as GDPR and more.
generated content.

Example use cases to WHO ARE WE AND WHY YOU SHOULD

running a contest include: READ THIS GUIDE
Launchpad6 is an Australian video management company and
• Employee engagement
have been globally hosting and managing user generated
• Brand awareness content (UGC) contest campaigns, including video, since 2009.
We are passionate about making a difference to businesses
• Ideation
across the globe by helping them better connect with their

• Lead generation audience.

We have managed all types of contests campaigns from small

• Social awareness
startups to large corporates and for a whole range of target
audiences. This guide represents years of experience of what
should be considered and how to make your next contest
campaign a huge success. We have aimed to provide an
unbiased view of contest considerations, so that regardless on
the platform or service provider you select to help manage your
contest this guide will provide valuable input.

We sincerely hope you find this guide useful and welcome any
feedback or ideas you have to continue to make this the most
comprehensive best practices guide to running a user generate
content contest campaign available anywhere.

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HOW DO I ATTRACT PEOPLE create it for you! This is called user generated
TO MY BRAND OR MESSAGE? content or UGC for short.

It is so hard nowadays to stand out from the It is a well-known fact that UGC is 20% more
crowd. Particularly with the explosion of social influential, 35% more memorable and 50% more
media, targeted advertising and not to mention trusted than other types of content. Of all UGC,
the millions of websites video is the most engaging
sprouting a medium of all. You just
competitive
“If your business is to need to look at some
message. thrive and compete against this of the most viral
videos on the web
You are also not avalanche of distraction, then you generated by
only competing everyday users to see
with your
need something to be worthy of
how much
traditional rivals but attracting their attention.” engagement they can
you are also vying for demand.
attention from unrelated
industries. Gaming and social networks are Remember the video of the lady wearing the
constantly entertaining potential customers and Chewbacca mask and laughing at herself in her
distracting them away from engaging with your car? Well that video was watched over 140
brand. million times! But if there’s one audience with
whom this video has been an even bigger hit, it’s
If your business is to thrive and compete against the folks over at Kohl’s, as 140 million viewers
this avalanche of distraction, then you need have just been reminded about what Kohl’s sells.
something to be worthy of attracting their It was also made a huge impact to Hasbro who
attention. But how? produces the mask. After the video went viral,
the mask sold out on the Kohl’s website. It’s also
Well, it’s all in the content! And the more
sold out at other retailers such as Target,
authentic and unique your content is, the more
Walmart and Toys R us.
engaging. However good quality content is
costly to produce and often doesn’t necessarily There is absolutely no denying what this kind of
end in the results you would like. viral success can have to your business. Without
doubt one of the most effective ways to source
So how can you produce engaging content for a
user generated content is through an online
fraction of the price?
video competition.
The answer is more simple than you think. You
get the very people you are trying to sell to, to

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VIDEO CONTESTS expected. While it’s great to create a big splash
to the market on your new vision, it will nearly
Most people get the concept of a video contest. always fall flat if the most important people to
Just think of your local funniest home videos your organization, your staff, are either not
program where they ask people to send in aligned to that message or flat out don’t believe
hilarious videos of their own or their friends it. This takes more than a senior executive
failures to win a prize. standing up and saying it is good because they
say so. The most influential people in your
However, the power that video contests can
organization are your staff. When your peers are
bring to your organization is often not
positive or can present a positive representation
understood. Yes, it seems great to create funny
of that message it usually spreads like pollen
TV for 30 minutes however how does that help
(unlike the opposite which also spreads like a
me and my organization? Well it can, and in more
virus). So, next time, instead of getting the
powerful ways than you can imagine.
executives to convince staff of how great an
So, what are the commons ways that you can organizational or product change is, get your
leverage video contests to help? Well here are a staff to do it through a video contest. You can
also use it as a training tool to describe how you

“The most influential people would represent the change. We have run many
internal contests with great results. You can also
in your organization are create a tribal mentality by pitting team against
team, or location against location to create a
your staff.” friendly rivalry. Provide good incentive and
employees will not only promote your message
few examples of our experience of how to to their peers but also have fun doing it.
leverage video contests and the benefits they
provide:
BRAND CONTESTS

EMPLOYEE VIDEO CONTESTS Brand contests strive to create your branded

message through your customers. By providing a
Employee video contests are a fantastic way to video contest to your loyal or prospective
engage employees and get them behind your customers provides you with a potentially global
brand and message in a fun and competitive supply of unique and interesting content that is
way. I cannot count the number of times I have generated by your audience. Give your audience
seen big new product releases, brand refreshes guiderails but at the same time enough freedom
or new organization visions only to have the to create unique content that has the potential to
initiative not deliver on the benefits originally go viral. The biggest ever viral videos are the

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ones that capture “spur of the moment” events. products or services. Examples include
If you can harness the power of a global crowd educational institutions seeking future course
of content creators this enhances your ability to ideas, entrepreneurs positioning their start-up
capture that unique video that could go viral and business ideas or internal staff providing ideas to
catapult your brand with it. By encouraging and provide new and interesting services.
rewarding your audience
to share their content (of “If you can harness the LEAD
course with the proper
power of a global crowd of GENERATION
controls in place) it can
Lead generation is
enable you to monitor
content creators this
any potential gems you another great reason to
may have captured in enhances your ability to run video contests. For
your contest that you can every participant provide
capture that unique video a gateway to capture
harness for your brand.
that could go viral and details about them and
potentially their interests.
IDEATION catapult your brand with it.” Store the captured
Ideation is the concept of information into your
sourcing innovative ideas for CRM database and use them for targeted follow
your organisation. Traditional approaches to up. A great idea is to provide your product as a
generating new ideas — most notably large prize. This identifies prospective customers who
corporate R&D labs staffed with world-class value your product enough to enter a contest to
talent — are expensive and often produce get hold of it. A great idea we have seen multiple
disappointing results. In response, companies times is to provide every contestant a discount
are searching for better ways to identify and voucher to your products. So even if they don’t
exploit novel solutions. win, it provides incentive to continue to connect
with your brand. Also, consider using social
Organisations are increasingly looking to crowd
media to capture details about your contestants.
source innovative ideas from external
By providing a registration page, where they can
participants who may have different perspectives
use their Facebook or Twitter account allows you
and skills. Innovation or idea contests are a great
to capture social information while making the
way to source ideas from either an external
registration process as seamless and easy as
audience or even employees within your own
possible. It is very important to ensure you do
organisation. We have run some extremely
not create too big a barrier to entry by trying to
successful ideation contests where participants
collect too much information. This will put off
provide innovative ideas or pitches to new

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potential participants and reduce your contests CHARITY DONATION
effectiveness.
Charity donation campaign is another twist on
the social awareness campaigns that we have
“Video can be used to
seen in the past. In this case entrants submit
provide your loyal videos to represent their cause. When the voting
period commences, instead of entrants receiving
supporters an angle on votes they receive donations. These donations
what your cause means to are then pledged to the charity or cause they
represent. One example contest had a “winner
them and connect with takes all” incentive for entrants with the highest

more people just like them.” donation earner receiving all the funds from all
entrants for their respective charity. This can
create a frenzy of donations with each entrant
SOCIAL AWARENESS
promoting their charity for it to win and receive
Social awareness initiatives typically have a loyal the final combined donation value.
following of people dedicated to a specific
cause. However sometimes you need incentive
HOW DO I PLAN FOR A
to help spread your messages beyond this core
CONTEST?
group and create more general awareness about
your social goal. Video contests are a fantastic To conduct a successful contest campaign, we
way to do this. Video can be used to provide have provided some key areas for you to
your loyal supporters an angle on what your consider and some best practice
cause means to them and connect with more recommendations. These include:
people just like them. It also provides the
• Set clear goals
opportunity for people to tell their story. They
may indeed be a recipient to your cause and • Identify the premise
therefore the message becomes even more
powerful. Creating a sense of community and • Determine your prize

friendly rivalry can expand your message right • Execution considerations

across global boundaries. You also get to gather
great content that can be reused in your other • Selecting your platform
campaigns.
• Get the legal conditions sorted

• Design and setup your contest

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• Promote your contest

• Getting the most from what you have collected

It is critical that each one of these steps is

considered when starting up your contest - if you
want your contest to achieve the positive results
you are looking for.

In the next few chapters we explore each of

these steps and discuss how we manage
each.

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 The goal of your contest should be the very first
GOAL SETTING
consideration. There are many ways to determine success
Achieving your goals depend for a video contest. It’s important that it aligns with your
on the objective of your business objectives.
campaign. Goals should be
aligned to your use case. 100

These include:
80
• Content engagement

• Number of leads 60

• Sales revenue
40

• Donations
20
• Brand exposure May
June 0
• Employee Participation July
August
• Innovation
Views Votes

CONTENT ENGAGEMENT
If the primary goal for your video contest is to source reusable
content to help promote your brand, then one of the key goals of
your contest is to source engaging content. While content quality
is very subjective, engagement values are a good tell-tale sign
whether you have sourced a winner. You can measure this by the
number of votes, shares, views, comments, or play completions
the videos receive during the contest.

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NUMBER OF LEADS contest by measuring conversions from this lead
group.
If your contest is focused on generating leads or
lists for your organization then the number of
entrants or emails you gather could be a good
DONATIONS
measure of success. Remember that it is not just If you are a charity looking to raise money for
entrant emails that you can capture. If you want your cause then one measure could be the
people to vote for submissions, you could apply number or value of donations your contest
an email gateway that captures a person’s email receives. You could except donations instead of
address when voting or get them to register votes to determine winners or even accept
using their social network login. donations for entry.

BRAND EXPOSURE EMPLOYEE PARTICIPATION

If brand exposure is what you are after then key This may be another goal which is essential for
measures include social metrics such as shares, internal employee contests. This may be
likes and comments as well as other video measured in the number of entries, and general
engagement as above. Also, broader site level contest engagement such as plays, votes, site
stats such as site visits, bounce rates, time on visits, etc. Comments are also a good sign of
site, etc. are good measures. positive engagement.

SALES REVENUE INNOVATION

You can generate sales revenue either directly or Another goal for contests that are created to
indirectly from you contest. If you want to create initiate new ideas is the number and quality of
direct revenue, then you may want to receive a entries. Obviously the end result goal is the
payment to enter your contest. Remember to number of ideas that are leveraged and the
ensure that the entry fee is reflective of the value difference they make to the organization.
of the contest prize or outcome to the individual
entrant. You don’t want to detract from people Once you have decided on the key goals and
entering. Another way to create sales revenue is performance indicators for your contest, it’s
indirectly by offering promotion codes or time to now focus on the premise for your
discounts to every entrant or voter. By using contest.
each entrant or voter as a lead provides an easy
way to capture direct revenue ROI for your

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 Before you begin creating your contest you need to think
PREMISE
about what your contest is trying to achieve for your
To ensure your contest is a business and how it will align to this goal. Understanding its
success the contest premise premise is critically important.
needs to be well thought out.

Considerations include: IS CONTENT READILY AVAILABLE OR

EASILY CREATED?
• Readily available content
Ease of content availability and/or creation are key factors in the
• Interesting content success of video upload campaigns. While the invent of
smartphones such as the iPhone and portable HD cameras such
• Shareable content
as GoPro have made it significantly easier, tapping into an area
• Elements of voyeurism whereby people have already created content can help boost
submission volume.
• Harnessing group mentality
One of the best ideas we’ve seen was a Cutest Baby Moment
• Source content with campaign, which tapped into a huge amount of content that
passion proud parents are creating every day, giving them an outlet to
both display and share the content with their friends and family.

IS THE CONTENT ITSELF INTERESTING?

Statistics show that the average user watches 18 hours of online
video per month but chances are they’re not watching content
that is not interesting. Consider whether the video content
uploaded to your contest is interesting to your target market.

One of the cleverest campaigns we’ve run was a Latte Art

Contest by a large Coffee Roasting House. The content was
compelling to their target market, where content was highly
shared, and thus resulting in the contest smashing their ‘views’
target by a whopping 500%.

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IS THE CONTENT SHAREABLE? ARE YOU HARNESSING GROUP
MENTALITIES OR EXISTING
People put a lot of thought into what they share
RIVALRIES?
online, and many consider the content they
share a reflection of themselves. Consider these It is a trait of human nature to form groups with
points and statistics from a recent New York those of similar beliefs, interests and preferences
Times study on sharing motivations: and thus, often rivalries (hopefully friendly) often
form between groups. Some of the most
Is the content entertaining or valuable? successful campaigns we’ve seen worked
because they harnessed group mentalities or
94% of people say they carefully consider how
existing rivalries, which provided extra incentive
the content they share will be useful to others. Is
to win. Some ideas include:
the content created as part of your contest
entertaining or valuable to your target market?
Schools

What does sharing that content say about One very successful campaign we saw pitted
themselves? schools across the nation against each other in a
Fashion contest. The contestants then promoted
68% of people consider what that piece of
their entry not just within their immediate friends
content will say about them before they share it.
and family but throughout their entire school,
Ask yourself what sharing a video from this
drawing thousands of views and votes to each
contest would say about an individual? Is this in
individual entry.
line with the self-image members of your target
market generally wish to portray?
Cities

IS THERE AN ELEMENT OF One campaign we saw even managed to tap into

VOYEURISM? an existing rivalry between two cities, rallying

people together behind their ‘tribe’. This extra
It is in our nature to show off our talents and incentive further encouraged entrants to share
skills to others. By creating a user-generated their video and resulted in deeper engagement
video campaign based around people’s talents, and increased reach for the brand.
you are giving them an outlet to create content
that by their very nature they will want to share
IS THERE ENOUGH PASSION?
and show off to their friends and family.
While campaigns that require users to upload
videos of consumers using their product are

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great, not all brands have enough brand loyalty
to inspire customers to do that.

If you’re not Apple or Harley Davidson, your best

bet is to inspire passion around the campaign
idea and piggyback your brand on that. Try to
come up with ideas that are fun and exciting but
still relate to and promote your brand.

For instance, a campaign for a foreign exchange

trading company asked the question ‘What
would you do if you made $1 million trading on
our platform?’ This brilliant campaign tapped
into the age-old habit of dreaming what one
would do with $1 million and put a spin on it that
actively promoted their product.

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 Your selection of incentive or prize can be the difference
PRIZE
between a great performing content and a poor one. Below
The prize you select will have are some key considerations when defining what your prize
a big impact on whether you should be to help achieve the goals you are after.
attract an audience to your
campaign.
PRIZE TYPE
Considerations for the right
Research shows that while big cash prizes can bring your
prize for your campaign
contest a lot of attention and help you gain reach, it is often more
include:
niche prizes that get better results as they appeal to your target
• Does your prize suite the market and drive sales. Here are some thoughts to ponder:

audience you are trying to

attract Does the prize appeal to the target market?

To engage the people who will buy your product, make sure your
• How valuable is it to your
prize is relevant to them. Big cash prizes tend to attract wider
audience
audiences, but a large portion of which may be people who have
• How often should you be no interest in your product (especially if it has niche appeal) so
awarding prizes try to offer prizes that will appeal primarily to your target market.

• How many and what type of

Is my prize unique & attractive?
prizes should you provide
Often, a unique and attractive prize will gain more attention than
a big, cash prize. This is true not just for your target audience but
for media coverage as well.

For instance, the famous ‘Best Job in the World’ campaign

offered the winner a job as the

‘caretaker of the great barrier reef’, which essentially involved

touring the Great Barrier Reef and its associated island and
blogging about it for a year. This unique prize not only attracted
over 34,000 entries but also secured an estimated $400 million

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worth of media coverage, being picked up by Minor Prizes
CNN, Time and MSNBC just to name a few.
Offer prizes for 2nd and 3rd place and tell
participants to invite their friends to enter as well
PRIZE VALUE so they can win the minor

It goes without saying that the more valuable

your prize is, the more attractive it will be to your Bonus Prizes

audience. That said, prize value doesn’t always Offer the winning participant a major prize and
relate to money. Here are some thoughts to some ‘bonus prizes’ and get them to invite the
ponder: friends who they’d give the bonus prizes to if
they were to win.
Is it valuable to my target audience?

Whilst cash prizes are valuable to everyone, you Random Draw Prizes

can often create a prize that is more valuable to Conduct random draw prizes whereby you give a
your target market at a much lower cost simply prize to random entrants throughout the contest.
by thinking outside the box. This helps break down the ‘I’ll never win’ barrier
that exists around contests and encourages
For instance, money can’t buy experience such
more participants.
as meeting a celebrity, backstage passes

or early release products can often be of more Incentive Prizes

value to your target market than a large cash
Reward participants who achieve certain
prize. Think about the resources you have
milestones but who have not won a major prize.
available and how you could utilize them to
The Launchpad6 Video Contest Platform
create a unique experience.
rewards users with Virtual Trophies for achieving
milestones such as 10,000 video views and it
SUPPLEMENTARY OR SHARED can add extra incentive for users if you reward
PRIZES them with tangible prizes.

Supplementary or shared prizes are a great way

of engaging people longer and encouraging their Participation Prizes

friends to take part as well. Consider these Reward all users with a participation prize to
ideas: thank them for their engagement with your
brand. It can be a good idea to utilize coupons or
samples for this, as it helps put your product in

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the hands of users which can ultimately lead to
loyalty sales.

Shared Prizes

Consider offering a prize that can be shared

amongst friends such as multiple backstage
passes, concert tickets, merchandise etc., and
tell participants to get their friend to vote on their
video so they too can win the prize. This will give
the participants friends & family extra incentive
to visit the site & vote and will help drive traffic.

Weekly or periodic Prizes

One of the most common behavioral traits of

contests is that most entries will come in close to
the upload expiration date. One way to
encourage a continual influx of entries spread
across the entire entry period is to offer up
periodic prizes during that upload period.
Weekly, biweekly or even monthly winners is a
great way to continually promote your contest
during the lifecycle of the contest.

15
 There are some key practical considerations you need to
EXECUTION
think about when planning how your contest will run. This
CONSIDERATIONS
section highlights a few critical execution considerations
There are a bunch of things when running your contest.
you need to consider when
you are designing how your WHAT IS THE SCHEDULE FOR MY
contest is going to execute. CONTEST?
Some considerations include: Your contest will contain specific stages and each stage needs to
be planned with the duration and schedule for each of these.
• The schedule plan for the
campaign Stages include:

• Who can access or enter • Preparation: This is the time you allocate to planning,
the contest designing and configuring your contest. While the platform
configuration can be quite quick it is important to allow enough
• What type content will you time to prepare your promotion campaigns, get legal’s sorted,
accept design your contest site and test to make sure everything
operates as expected.
• Do you need to moderate
interactions and content • Pre-entry: this is when your announcements and pre-contest
promotion kick-off
• How do you pick your
winners • Entry period: This is the period when contestants are invited to
upload their entries
• How is your contest going
to look • Voting period: This is the period when the contest is open for
public voting (if public voting is required) to shortlist or select
winners

• Judging period(s): This could be a separate period to the

voting in which a panel of judges are invited to score entries.
There could be multiple judging rounds depending on the
number of entries.

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• Winner announced period: this is when the whether you just accept entries openly. You may
final winner is announced and promoted across also want to introduce a gateway for entering
your network your contest. This could include a payment
requirement or even a follow-us requirement.
• Hibernate or start again: Once the contest is
over this is the period between your next
contest. Interestingly our experience is that WHAT TYPE OF CONTENT CAN
contests continue to attract good audience WE ACCEPT?
engagement even well after they are complete. While video contests provide the opportunity to
Remember that you should not stop and one. source engaging video content, you may also
Learn from your previous campaign and make consider that the contest may not be about
the next one even better. video at all. This could include images, sound
recordings or even documents. For example, we
IS THE CONTEST ACCESSIBLE have supported contests by book publishers
BY THE PUBLIC? looking for their next great story with entrants
submitting the first chapter of their book.
Who can access the contest is an important
consideration. If your contest is aimed at
employees or is a private member only contest, DO WE WANT TO LIMIT VIDEO
then it may be important that only invited people DURATIONS?
can see the contest. There are multiple ways that If your contest is all about video, then it is
a contest can be hidden from unwanted eyes. important that you limit the length of videos that
These include user login access, restricted are submitted. It is important for your audience
network access or moderated registration for to create short and engaging videos and not
access. epics (unless that is what you are after). Not to
mention that videos can be extremely large.
Alternatively, the contest could be open to the
world in which case you want to ensure as many
people as possible find it. Ensure you have setup SHOULD MODERATION BE
your tags and setup your SEO. INTRODUCED?
It is always advisable to moderate entries from
WHO CAN ENTER THE your audience in case they are submitting
CONTEST? something not aligned to the content your
contest is trying to source. This is particularly the
While you may want to open your contest to the
case if you are presenting a gallery of your
world you need to decide whether participants
entries for view by your participants. You should
should have to register to enter your contest or

17
also consider whether you need to moderate audience’s favorite videos. This can be
other engagement such as comments and consolidated as a combined engagement score
registrations. for each entry.

SHOULD UPLOAD HAPPEN WHAT DO WE NEED TO

BEFORE VOTING OR JUDGING CONSIDER IF USING PUBLIC
COMMENCES? VOTING?
It is feasible but not recommended to enable If you have decided to get the public to vote for
voting or even judging during the entrant upload their favorite entries, then it is important to
period. This is not typically recommended as it ensure you get a fair and representative
may give entrants who upload early an unfair outcome. To this end you need to decide how
advantage. Our recommendation is always to many votes per person you are going to accept
commence voting or judging after the entry per entry and how often you are going to allow
upload period had completed. voting from the same person. Also, just as
important is to determine how you are going to
identify who is voting. There are multiple options
SHOULD WE USE PUBLIC
from using IP address to using email validation
VOTING OR JUDGING PANELS
management. You need to ensure you can strike
TO SELECT WINNERS?
a happy balance between ensuring a fair and
How you are going to select your winners needs fraud free outcome but at the same time not
to be determined early as this will form part of creating too high a barrier to voting.
your terms and conditions. Winners can either be
selected by your audience or by an internal panel
WHAT TYPE OF ENGAGEMENT
of judge or both. What we find to be the best
DO WE WANT TO PROMOTE?
practice is to use both. Reducing your shortlist
using either public voting or a panel of judges is If you want to promote specific types of
recommended and then using the alternative to engagement, then you should consider
select your winner(s). if you are using the public rewarding entrants based the engagement you
to select your shortlist or winners you should want to promote. For example, if you want
also consider whether it is just votes you want to entries to get as much social engagement as
use as this is an obvious and explicit action. possible with the hope of striking a viral entrant,
Often subtler implicit actions such as using other then provide a higher score for entries with
engagement metrics to help select your winners. higher social engagement. If the contest is aimed
Engagement such as plays, comments, shares, at internal employees, then specific engagement
likes and more are a great way to determine your

18
with the entry such as plays will be a critical • Create a sense of urgency: It is important to
metric to reward. ensure your audience understands there is time
limit for them to enter or vote for entries. A
great idea is to include a clearly visible timer on
WHAT COPY AND DESIGN DO
your site so that it creates a sense of urgency
WE NEED FOR OUR CONTEST?
to action.
Lastly and probably most importantly is the
design of your contest pages. Some general tips • Use SEO friendly copy: Ensure that the copy
and things to consider include the following: you create for your contest pages are SEO
friendly. This will increase the chances of your
• Keep it simple and brief: If you are only going contest being found on your audience’s
to take one of these points as a key favorite search engines. SEO copywriting is all
recommendation then this one is it. The about creating useful, compelling and valuable
overwhelming temptation by many is to provide content that targets specific keywords so that
as much contest information, conditions, tips other people will gladly promote it on social
and instructions as possible on the front or media platforms. This increases the authority
entry page. This will generally just turn away and relevance of your content and improves its
your potential contestants or result in poor ranking in Google for the selected keywords.
entries as most people will not read your
detailed information. Remember keep it simple, • Don’t overload on entry fields: With every
brief and to the point. Good advice is to hire a entry, you need to capture information about
good copywriter to help creating a compelling your entrant. The most popular information
message. Having an expert copywriter will also captured includes name, email, title and entry
help with the SEO point below. Keep detail in description. Occasionally it is also necessary to
the terms and conditions page as a link where capture additional information such as DOB,
it belongs. gender, location, etc. Our general advice is to
keep the fields required to those that are
• Consider using explainer video: Consider necessary for your campaign.
using an explainer video to provide details
around your contest instead of lots of copy. • Be consistent: When designing your site
remember to be consistent with your colors,
• Use a clear call to action: Make sure that you fonts and images you use across the contest.
use clear call to actions to either enter, view, This will provide a consistent message and
vote, share or any other key actions you want flow across your site for users.
your audience to do.

19
 Now that you have thought about some of the keys things
SELECTING YOUR
you need for your contest it is time to get to work on
PLATFORM
implementing your contest. There are a few high-level
When selecting the platform options when selecting how you are going to deliver your
to run your contest you pretty solution:
much have three options:
BUILD IT YOURSELF
These options include:
Surprisingly this is a very common approach that many
• Build your own
organizations take to deliver their contest. It probably provides
• Use a social platform the most flexibility in meeting your needs as you can build it to
whatever specifications you like. However, the biggest issue here
• Use a purpose built contest is cost and time. This is by far the most expensive option and
platform should only be attempted by organizations that clearly
understand exactly what they need and have the deep pockets
required to develop the solution.

USE A VIDEO OR CONTENT PLATFORM

Another option is to leverage a standard video or social platform
as a base for your contest. Platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo or
Facebook typically form base systems for contests. These are
cheaper options than the “Build it yourself” option. That can also
potentially leverage natively off the huge base of social users that
already leverage the platform. The biggest drawback with these
solutions is they do not provide the flexibility and base
capabilities to deliver against many of the requirements your
contest needs to be successful. You also have very limited
control and in some cases, limited ownership rights to the
content sourced.

20
SELECT A CONTEST SOLUTION
PLATFORM
The 3rd option for a platform to run your contest
is leveraging a purpose-built contest platform. In
many circumstances this provides the best
balance of flexibility and cost to running your
contest. The organizations that develop these
purpose-built platforms (such as Launchpad6)
run contests all the time and can provide advice
and well as ongoing support to make your
contest a success.

21
 One area that is often overlooked but extremely important is
LEGALS
the legal conditions around your contest. Before anyone
Legal considerations are enters your contest, you should clearly display and have
critical to ensure you are not entrants accept the terms and conditions of entry.
going to get sued or fall foul
of local laws and legislations.
AREAS THAT SHOULD BE CONSIDERED
Considerations include: ARE AS FOLLOWS:
• Local jurisdiction laws • Jurisdiction of the contest and which laws need to be complied
with,
• IP ownership
• The ownerships rights or right to use the entry content
• Entrant protections submitted,

• Winner rules • How do you intend to use and manage personal information
submitted with entries,
• Liability and indemnity
• Are minors entering and if so does a form of consent need to
• Disqualification rights
be provided,
• and much much more..
• How will winners be selected,

• What are the rights of the organizer to cancel or override any

winner decisions,

• How would you handle any potential fraud voting detected,

• Who can enter the contest e.g. employees, age limits, etc.

• Do you have the right to cancel the contest,

• Acceptable entry conditions e.g. no defamatory, malicious,

breach of IP, etc.

• Limitation of liabilities

22
• Disqualification rights

• Data protection and publicity rights

• Judging methods and how do you handle ties

• Where any donations are involved what

compliance needs to be in place for local
jurisdiction

• Where entry fees are collected, what

compliance needs to be in place for local
jurisdiction

To manage these conditions and more it is

advisable that legal counsel is engaged to
ensure that everything is above board and legal.
We provide a standard template that can be
used as a starting point however it is critical that
any standard template is checked by a legal
representative and works for your contest
jurisdiction.

23
 With all the negative press about the privacy concerns that
PRIVACY
organisations such as Facebook have attracted recently it is
With the recent changes to any wonder that legislation such as the EU’s General Data
global privacy acts such as Protection Regulation (GDPR) has gained so much attention.
GDPR it is critical you
consider how you manage There are now heavy fines for organisations (of any size) that
personal information from don’t abide by these new privacy laws.

your participants. So, if you are thinking of running a campaign such as an online
contest where you are collecting people’s information through
Considerations include:
either registration, entry or voting then there are a few things you
• Local privacy laws need to consider in order to stay compliant with laws such as
GDPR.
• What information you
collect So, if you are thinking of running a campaign such as an online
contest where you are collecting people’s information through
• What you will do with the either registration, entry or voting then there are a few things you
information need to consider in order to stay compliant with laws such as
GDPR.
• How will you collect it
Let’s touch on a few of these.
• The privacy terms
Important:
• and much much more..
The explanations and information provided herein are only general and high-level
explanations, information and samples. You should not rely on this article as legal
advice or as recommendations regarding what you should actually do. We
recommend that you seek legal advice to determine your privacy requirements. 

Personal Data

Before you launch your contest campaign it is important to

understand what information you are going to collect, what it is
going to be used for, how it is going to be managed and
protected and how individuals can get access to it, delete it or

24
update it. Once you understand this you need to to the conditions in more detail. Regardless how
ensure this is explained in clear simple to read it is displayed in cannot be written in complex
language in your privacy policy or statement of legal jargon.
conditions. This needs to be readily accessible
Show a positive expression of choice, the
on your contest site whenever somebody is
individual must take some kind of specific action
handing over this information.
to provide consent. It is not acceptable to have
It’s important to remember that this may not only consent pre-selected or assumed without the
be for explicitly entered information such as individual taking specific action. Make sure if you
name and email address. It could also include have an opt-in form the opt-in tick box is not
other identifiable information such as IP address ticked by default.
or other information obtained from the device
they are using. The consent must be auditable, the date, time
and conditions that an individual agreed to when
Opt-in Consent they provided consent must be kept and
producible in the case of a complaint or audit of
Now that you know what information you are
compliance.
going to collect, and you have explained this to
individuals, you need to ensure you provide Opt- It must be able to be withdrawn, the individual
in function(s) when individuals are handing over must be able to withdraw their consent at any
their information. For consent to be considered time where the consent has been provided for
valid, here are a few things you need to consider: purposes other than the running of the contest.

It must be freely given, without coercion, undue The consent must be provided by someone
incentives or a penalty for refusal. This is an who is of a legal age, which may vary from
important one because while you can request region to region however typically someone
consent as a condition for entering or voting in a needs to be 16 years of age or older in the EU or
contest, if this same consent includes using 13 years of age in most US states. Anyone below
personal data for other unrelated purposes (e.g. legal age must receive consent authorised by the
adding to a mailing list) then this consent must holder of parental responsibility over the minor.
be obtained separately. It also should not You also need to ensure you show reasonable
preclude the person from entering the contest if steps to verify that the person providing consent
consent for unrelated purposes is not given. is authorised.

The consent conditions must be displayed

clearly and be easy to understand so the person
knows what they are agreeing to. This could be
in the form of a short description and then a link

25
Examples of consent: that someone has uploaded for ongoing
campaigns. In the case of a disgruntled
contestant or upon an individual finding out that
they didn’t win they could request for their video
to be deleted. This hardly seems fair. As the use
of the video for ongoing campaign was the
Incorrect, as this is the condition of entry to the original premise of the contest you need to
contest and the individual cannot enter the ensure that the consent to the terms and
contest without also agreeing to be included on conditions that the individual agreed to include
a marketing list which is not related to the the perpetual rights to the video, photo or
specific contest. This is seen as a penalty for material that the individual provided as part of
refusal. the contest. It is important to ensure you get this
thoroughly checked by your legal team to ensure
you do not limit the effectiveness of your
campaign due to local privacy laws.

Data portability

Correct, as the acceptance to join the marketing Data portability is all about making sure that you

list is separate from entering the contest. The can that you can export personal data in a

tick box for the marketing list is also not selected common format so that it can be transferred

by default which means the individual needs to either to another platform (controller) or provided

take a positive action in order to opt-in. It must back to the customer who has supplied it. This is

also not be pre-selected. definitely something you need to ensure you

consider when selecting a platform to manage
Right to be forgotten your contest or campaign.

GDPR and many other privacy rights include the Contact details
right to be forgotten. This effectively means that
an individual has the right to request for their An important aspect which we often see

information to be permanently deleted. forgotten when running a campaign is to provide

Interestingly this is a tricky one when it comes to an easy way to contact the organisation running

contests. While this is pretty straight forward for the campaign. The ability to request for personal

personal information such as name, email, information to be accessed, deleted, changed or

address, etc. With UGC contests you may have to lodge a complaint are examples of reasons

received consent to use a video or other UGC that you need to ensure you have an easy way
for your customers to contact you.

26
This could include phone and email address
details or a contact form. This should be clearly
visible on your campaign pages.

Privacy conclusion

While privacy laws such as GDPR seem onerous

and a burden, organisations that treat their
customers information with respect and
transparency will the real winners. This creates
an ongoing trust with your customers and
ensures that the likelihood of falling foul of the
privacy laws is minimised.

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PROMOTION CREATE A CONTEST VIDEO
Now that your contest has A contest video is an advertisement for your contest that
started you need to attract explains and promotes it. It should outline the prizes, how to
people to your campaign. enter and when to enter by and include a distinct call to action.

There are many options but If applicable, utilize familiar faces such as sponsored athletes as
they usually are more relatable in social networks than a brand
some include:
itself. Consider the following ways of re-positioning the video to
• Social Ads get the most out of the investment:

• Contest directory sites • Launch it through your social channels first to give your fans
the ability to enter first. (Statistics show the #1 reason for
• Search Ads
‘liking’ a brand on Facebook is exclusive content or offers and
this is a great way to give the fans what they want.)
• Viral content

• Include it on the contest site so users who stumble across the

• Corporate web site
site through other advertising can learn about the contest in an
promotion
engaging way.
• Email distribution
• Utilize video advert networks such as BrightRoll to put your
• Blogger outreach advert in front of your target market on other sites or go direct
to industry specific sites.
• Community outreach
• Utilize the video to enhance your listing on Contest Directory
Sites.

SOCIAL ADS
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks offer a
robust and highly targeted advertising system that blends with
organic results to increase click through rates and boost brand
recall.

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Use these to drive targeted audiences to your Contestgirl - has been a sweepstakes and
contest. Also ensure you continually post contest directory since 2006. A great site to post
updates on different stages for your contest. your contest.
Includes events such as commencement dates,
entry highlights, upload expiration reminders, Online-Sweepstakes - a global directory of

voting period announcements, winner sweepstakes and contests.

announcements and more. The more you engage

your audience through your chosen social PRODUCT PACKAGING
network the more of the right people will engage
Depending on your brand and product, you
with your contest.
could have a free advertising medium right
underneath your nose. Try utilizing your product
GOOGLE ADS packaging to drive your customers to the online

Google AdWords can be an effective way of site. Remember that your existing customers

driving targeted traffic to your contest. By already have a level of engagement and possibly

purchasing AdWords against common search loyalty to your brand. They are often produce

terms amongst your target market you can some of the passionate videos about your

create highly targeted campaigns that only cost company or cause. When they upload a video

you when a user clicks through to your site. they’ll share it with their friends and you’ll gain
organic reach.

DIRECTORY SITES
CREATE A VIRAL VIDEO
There are many online video contest directories
that list all the video contests happening on the Not to be confused with the contest video, viral

web. These sites usually have an engaged videos are entertaining content pieces designed

audience of filmmakers actively looking for to be spread virally throughout the web and

contests to enter and can be a great way to drive should not blatantly promote the contest. From

quality submissions. That said if you are looking our experience, the following rules will help:

to engage a niche audience the traffic and

entries from these sites may not be as targeted Create Content, Not Ads
as other mediums. Try to refrain from creating a blatant ad for your

A couple of example directory sites includes the contest and focus on creating a piece of content

following: that entertains. It is ok to promote your contest

somewhere, but do it subtly and organically (as if
it is part of the story).

29
Provoke a response which you can use to direct future marketing
initiatives.
Humans are social beings and we naturally like
to share positive experiences like laughter or Utilize your social channels (Facebook, Twitter,
happiness with our friends. Draw an emotional YouTube, etc.) to spread the word about your
response from your viewer such as shock or promotion. Some ideas include:
laughter and they will naturally want to share it
with their friends.
Post popular videos to your Facebook page

The newsfeed is the most popular feature of

Remove sharing barriers
Facebook with users spending 28% of their time
Consider the points before (under premise) on there. By posting popular videos as updates they
shareable content. What does sharing your can be seen in the news feeds of your fans,
video say about the individual? Does this align creating awareness of your contest and
with what they want to be saying about organically engaging them. Furthermore, when a
themselves? fan engages with a video in the news feed (by
playing, liking or commenting) it improves your
Seed your content contents ranking and helps ensure your future
content will appear in your fans news feed.
Before it can go viral, you need initial viewers.
Identify influencers in your industry and get it in
front of them, or use a viral seeding company Reward the #1 User
such as Sharethrough or Unruly Media to do it Many Brand Pages have had success by
for you. These services usually charge a per view awarding ‘Fan of the Month’ to a fan and adding
fee so it’s measureable and effective. them to their Page’s profile picture. Consider
utilizing this same technique to reward the user
There are tons of resources on creating ‘Social
with the current number one video. Not only
Videos’, for the latest best practices and
does this provide extra incentive to climb the
information check out http://www.reelseo.com/
rankings but it also helps organically spread
video/social/
awareness of your contest.

CORPORATE WEBSITE Post the contest video to YouTube

On average, 99% of website visitors leave a site Adding the contest video to your YouTube
without achieving any sort of conversion. By channel can help drive traffic across. Consider
adding a link to your contest from your site, not adding clickable Hotspots to the video to provide
only can you further engage the user in your functional calls to action.
brand but you can collect their data on signup

30
EMAIL LIST communities. However, it is generally not a good
idea to overtly sell your contest within these
Sending an email out to your email database can communities. People are there to interact with
be a straightforward yet effective method of likeminded individuals and generally resent overt
creating awareness and driving traffic. Make sure brand involvement so respect the community
to include a clear call to action to ensure an easy and try to make your promotional activities
transition from email to contest site. subtle and valuable to the community.

Also, consider the timing of your email relative to

your target market. Statistics show Tuesdays, MASS MEDIA
Wednesdays & Thursdays are the best days to
Mass Media such as TV & Radio can be a very
send emails and that around lunch is a good
effective way of achieving awareness at scale
time for more social emails (such as your
but can also be expensive and untargeted.
contest).
Consider your target market, where they
primarily engage and the nature of your contest
BLOGGER OUTREACH before investing in this medium. It can also be
helpful to engage the services of creative
Bloggers and influencers are becoming an
agencies and media agencies to ensure the
increasingly powerful way of reaching and
advertisement is effective and that it is being
engaging your target market and can provide
aired in the best channels and timeslots to reach
excellent reach into niche markets. Whilst
your target market.
engaging a blogger can be difficult as the
popular ones are regularly approached, consider
offering them promotional space on your contest
page in return for an article or tweet to their
follower base.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH
As stated before, it is human nature to form
groups with others that share similar interests,
beliefs or preferences and it is common for these
groups to congregate both online and offline.

Consider areas where your target audience

congregates, including events, clubs, chatrooms
etc. and consider reaching out into those micro-

31
FRAUD HOW TO STOP CONTEST FRAUD
RUINING YOUR CAMPAIGN
Contest Fraud can really ruin
your contest particularly You just kicked off this great campaign and got everyone excited
where large prizes are about how much exposure and traffic it is going to generate.
concerned. This chapter
Your campaign asks customers, prospects and friends to come
looks at some ways to reduce in and share and vote for their favourite video, image or other
the risk of voting fraud content that helps promote your brand or cause.
including:
This is going to be great for your company and at the same time
• Setting rules for fraud elevate your position as an innovative thinker.

• Public vs private voting All seems to be going great until you notice that the votes you
are receiving are really starting to spike. While at first you have a
• Setting multiple rounds
feeling of elation that quickly turns to panic as you see some
• Voter identity unusual behaviour with the voting. You then realise your
campaign is being targeted by fraudsters trying to elevate the
• Using social position of specific entries for either personal gain or just for
purely malicious intentions.
• IP address validation
So what do you do, or more importantly how do I stop or at least
• Monitoring votes
minimise this happening in the first place?
• Blocking votes
Well, first things first. Unfortunately, you are never going to be

• Legal protection able to eliminate the risk of fraudsters submitting rubbish votes.
However, there are steps you can take to stop them from ruining
your campaign.

Here are some tips which we have found to help deter or reduce
fraudulent votes from happening.

32
Make it clear that fraud votes • Narrow down the best entries using one or
more internal judging panel rounds and then
will be removed conduct public voting to select the winners

Always make it clear from the outset that you will There are pros and cons to each option.
be monitoring votes coming in and that votes
that are suspected to be fraudulent may at your The first option is great when you want maximum
sole discretion be removed and that engagement. This is the best option when your
disqualification of the entry can result. Contest is focused on brand or social awareness
as it promotes sharing and promoting of all
Don’t set public votes as the entries. It also still provides a good safeguard
through the judging panel. You can also include
sole winning selection criteria
in your terms and conditions that wildcard
This is a big one. If you are providing a big prize entries can also be considered in the judging
to your winner(s) you will always want to have a rounds.
final say in who should win the prize. For this
The second option is more suited to contests
reason we always recommend that public voting
where content reuse is the primary concern. This
should be only one of the winner(s) selection
allows you to filter down to the best content and
criteria and not the sole one. Other engagement
then use the popular vote to determine the best
metrics can be used such as views, plays,
one.
shares, etc. Also consider setting up internal
judging panels which will also play a part in Use email voting gateway
selecting the winner(s).
By using an email gateway for voting means that
By making this obvious on your contest site will
voters will need to enter their email address to
discourage fraudsters from putting in dummy
cast a vote. ContestPad validates the email by
votes if it is not going to have a significant
sending the voter a validation token key for them
impact on the result.
to validate the email address and only after
doing this is the vote counted. While this is no
Run multiple rounds
guarantee that the voter doesn’t have multiple
The selection of winners typically follows two email addresses it does limit it somewhat. Note
patterns: that if the voter is trying to use temporary email
services or you suspect a fraudulent domain you
• Narrow down the best entries using public can block these (more later on this). Also make
voting and then conduct one or more internal sure that you configure the vote validation email
judging panel rounds template to include copy that requests the

33
recipient to not select the link if the vote was not Monitor voting
cast by them. You can also include an email
address to report any potential fraudulent emails. As voting commences and even after voting is
complete, there is no substitute to monitoring
Use social voting gateway your vote data. You can export out all votes in a
CSV format so that you can even do more
Another option for validating the identity of
detailed analysis using Excel or some other
voters is to use the social voting gateway. This
analysis tool. Look for patterns such as:
requires the voter to use their social network
account to vote in the contest. This puts the • Similar email addresses coming from same
reliance on validating voter identity on the social IP addresses
platform. Facebook is one of the better platforms
• Many votes (even with different emails)
for this as they go through greater lengths to
coming from within the same session
validate the identity of account holders than say
Twitter. Having said this it is important to note • Continuous pattern of voting even during late
that Facebook still has up to 5% to 6% fake night and early mornings
accounts.
• Single or small number of entries that have
Use IP Address validation significantly higher votes that the other
entries
Another option is to leverage the IP address of
the person’s device to validate their identity. This • Entries that have high votes but very low
is the voting method that has the lowest barrier other engagement, e.g. finishes, views,
to voting. While this doesn’t really identify a shares, etc.
user’s identity it does assume that each device
• Look for email domains that belong to
typically belongs to one person. This can come
temporary email service providers
unstuck if a person has multiple devices
(unfortunately many click farms do this). Also, if Block or remove suspect votes
voting is being conducted behind a corporate or
institutional firewall sometimes the end users IP Once you have found suspect votes you should
address is hidden. This means that the IP consider invalidating these votes and more
address for every device coming from this importantly block them from coming in again. If
intranet will look the same. This will result in you identify IP addresses, individual email
possibly being locked out from legitimate voting. addresses or even whole email domains (e.g.
that belong to a suspect corporation or
temporary email service provider) then you can
block these in the global settings of ContestPad.

34
ContestPad already has an internal blacklist of • Not allowing disputes to be raised upon the
email domains and blocks email votes coming selection of the winner (your decision should
from these domains (these mainly include be final),
temporary email service domains). However,
• Ensuring you have the right to disqualify if
there are new domains popping up all the time
fraud is suspected,
so if you find some we haven’t blacklisted let us
know so we can continue to update our internal • Ensure you have the right to remove votes
list. suspected of being fraudulent,

To show or not to show vote • Ability to change the winner selection

process.
metrics
Also remember to ensure that the above and any
Another thing to consider is whether to show to
other conditions are legally enforceable in the
the public how many votes each entry has
jurisdiction of your contest (and make sure you
received. Obviously, this can incentivise honest
state what your jurisdiction is). Make sure you
voters or entrants to get more votes as they see
enrol the help of legal professionals to take care
their vote counts climb. Unfortunately, it can also
of this for you.
incentivise some people to do the wrong thing as
they directly see the results of their fraudulent While there is no way to 100% guarantee that
behaviour. Also, once votes are displayed it can voters will not do the wrong thing, if you follow
make for an awkward discussion if votes are many of the steps above you minimise the risk
removed as the entrant may claim no knowledge that potential fraud issues bring your campaign
of vote fraud. An option is to state the votes into question.
counts displayed are indicative and are subject
to change upon internal validation.

Protect yourself legally

The final line of protection is ensuring that the

legal terms and conditions for your contest (and
which all participants agree to when entering the
contest) covers your rights related to some of the
following items:

• Winners being selected at your sole

discretion regardless of votes or other
metrics,

35
OPTIONS FOR BUILD & UTILIZE YOUR DATABASE
YOU DATA AND Consider using the data collected from users upon signup,
CONTENT including name, email & address, to continue the dialogue with
COLLECTED your customers. Remember that if you are considering using the
information you collect for purposes other than the contest that
Your contest has now you have a record of the participant opting into the use of their
completed. How do you get information. Refer to Privacy section for further details.
value out of the information
Possible options include:
and content you have
collected.
Offer an exclusive post-contest deal
Areas we discuss include:
Offer all users an exclusive deal to thank them for their
• Selling to your contestants participation in your contest. Consider utilizing coupons or
samples for this, as it helps put your product in the hands of
• Adding to your newsletter users which can ultimately lead to loyalty sales.
and communication lists
Add users to your mailing list
• Re-purposing content
Considering adding the user information to your mailing list to
continue the conversation with your customers, making sure you
comply with any applicable Anti-Spam laws in the country you
operate.

To prevent unsubscribes, consider the context in which these

users landed on your mailing list and attempt to provide valuable
content rather than blatant promotional material.

RE-PURPOSE CONTENT
With so much free video content being created, it’s a good idea
to re-purpose this content where possible. Depending on the

36
premise of your contest, some of these ideas
may be relevant to you:

Create a montage – If you received a number of

great submissions, consider editing together a
video montage to be seeded around the web.
With some good editing, appropriate music and
basic seeding techniques, you could have a viral
video on your hands. For best results, consider
some of the viral video tips mentioned earlier.

Add video to your marketing strategy - If you

received several submissions relating to your
product, company or service (i.e. testimonials,
interesting uses, etc.) consider re- positioning
these on your corporate website. Social proof
has been proven to increase purchase intent and
video is an excellent way of delivering the
message.

Add entries to your YouTube Channel – Behind

Google, YouTube is the second largest search
engine in the world with over 3 billion searches
monthly. By re-positioning the video content on
your YouTube Channel, you can drive some of
that search traffic to your channel and build
brand awareness organically.

37
HAVE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO ADD?
Email us at enquiries@launchpad6.com

Tweet about the paper using hashtag #launchpad6

Launchpad6 is a web application used to instantly create user-

generated content competitions.

Contact us for how we can help make your contest a success at:

http://www.launchpad6.com/contact-us

or email us at enquiries@launchpad6.com

© Copyright Launchpad6 - 2018

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