Facebook Contest Brings 10,000 New Fans to TV Station
WJLA Successful Car Giveaway Lures Additional New Car Dealers as Sponsors
Company: WJLA, an ABC TV affiliate
Owner: Albritton Communications Company
Market: Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia
Audience: Nearly 3 million adult TV viewers; 350,000 unique online monthly visitors
Contributors to this report: Bonnie Wood, WJLA promotion manager
Initiative: Facebook Auto Giveaway
Challenge: WJLA wanted to create a mega-contest that would dramatically increase its Facebook fans, to build and engage its audience, at a minimal cost.
Strategy: The team decided to go with a sure-fire winner: An auto give-away. They carefully designed the contest to create a home run. The prize was 2012 Tuxedo Black Metallic Ford Fiesta Sedan SE, valued at $20,525 and $3000 cash. The local auto dealership donated the car in return for promotion on social media and in the station’s newscasts.
The station scheduled the contest during the May sweeps, April 24th through May 8th, 2012. People could enter the contest once a day, but only on Facebook. If they shared the contest with their friends, they were allowed two additional entries.
A station team of three was dedicated to posting social media every 45 minutes, primarily on Facebook, but also on Pinterest, Twitter, Google+ and YouTube. See graphic below of station Facebook page. Vehicle promotions included a video walk around of vehicle.
“We promoted the contest with 15 second spots, and station IDs that basically said ‘win a free car,’ “ WJLA promotion manager Bonnie Wood told Local Media Insider.
“It was a very heavy promo schedule, and additionally we mentioned it in all the newscasts.”
At the end of the contest, 15 semi-finalists were drawn at random via computer. Participants had to be watching the TV station when they were named as semi-finalist and call the station within 30 minutes.
The winner was a 21 year old local college student. The station went live at the dealership with her as she got her keys and drove away. See top image.
Results:
The contest was a resounding success as a mega-fan builder, generating 10,000 new Facebook fans and an approximate 5 percent increase in broadcast audience. Only cost to the station was the time spent airing and managing the promotion.
“We now have 92,000 Facebook fans, and now other auto dealerships have contacted us about doing something similar,” said Wood.
The contest also inspired the team to create more engagement contests.
“It was so popular that hardly a week goes by now that we don’t have a contest. We’re about to give away a trip to Disneyworld, to promote the syndicated Live with Kelly and Michael show. We give away gas cards and cash all the time, and have also given away a year of pizza.” See graphic below.
Especially popular are items that are hard to find: in Christmas 2012, "we gave away a LeapPad Explorer, a gift for kids that was so much in demand that stores were running out of them,” said Wood. “We’ve also had contests for Madonna and Justin Bieber concert tickets – two of the hottest tickets in town. “
Lessons Learned:
In retrospect, the group thinks that the contest could have been even bigger and better if they had altered just a few things:
• Three weeks was probably too long to run the contest.
“While we had a little spike in traffic, we should have had more... I guess people started getting tired of it,” said Wood.
• The call-in requirement during a live broadcast was too difficult.
“We had the semi-finalists call in between 5pm and 5:30pm, when people were in their cars driving home from work. It was difficult for them to call. We picked the wrong time.”
• The station missed revenue opportunities by not seeking additional sponsors. “We only had the one advertiser,” said Wood.
• Continual promotion everywhere is a key to success.
Our take: An auto give away is a a great mega-contest to create a significant jump in the fan base and viewer engagement. Also a great way to jump start downloads of mobile apps - just make sure to run the promotions, and sell the value of the overall campaign, across all platforms. The more value, the higher share of cash the dealer can bring to the table. We've seen revenues for some app launches approach six figures.
Many thanks to promotions director Bonnie Wood for sharing this case study.
