Bartender of the Year Contest

The Bartender of the Year in Pottstown put her extensive social network to work on behalf of pottsmerc.com (click to enlarge)

Give bars what they want: Social media promotion and microsites.

Photo

Site: Pottsmerc.com
Traffic: 330,000 unique visitors
Media: Pottstown Mercury, Pottstown, Pa
Company: Journal Register Company
Key Executive: Jared Semet, Online Sales Manager

Challenge: The Pottsmerc.com wanted to develop a contest that would attract a younger demographic and entice local bars to advertise.

Strategy: Since local bars are heaviy reliant on social media, Semet decided to stage a Bartender of the Year contest. Timing is the first part of the strategy: They chose to launch the contest on the "biggest drinking night of the year,"  the night before Thanksgiving. The contest ran through December 20.

Built on the Second Street platform, the concept was simple. Only a dozen bars were needed to  sponsored, or "nominated"  their bartender for a fee of $200 each. These numbers could easily be increased in a larger market, but the point is that you don't have to have huge numbers of bartenders to accomplish the main objective: A profitable contest with a lot of new e-mail registrations.

Each bar received branding  on the contest's  promotional ads. Nominated bartenders' profile, including their favorite drink, how long they worked there, and a 30 second video bio, created by sales reps with Flip cameras, and edited by a third party, Affinity (here are tips on training sales reps to shoot video in the field).

Votes were  limited to one per person per day, during a two week voting period, so the venues and bartenders were incented to use social networking to secure votes.

This is an especially good  audience and project for social media: Readers "dedicated to a bar" as well as the bartenders did a lot of Facebook posting. "It kind of morphed ito this network. We planted the seed and it took off from there and just grew."

The winner, who was one of the most active social networkers, received a 3x4 vinyl banner to display at the location, and a trophy, in addition to bragging rights.

Results:

Besides a lot of fun and $6000 in new revenues, the contest generated  2000 regeistered voters in two weeks; people who are now on the e-mail database to be used in other promotions, such as daily deals. The contest is scheduled to be an annual event. 

Many thanks to Jared Semet, online sales manager at the Journal Register for contributing  this and other revenue ideas involving niche products with micro videos,  at the SNA/Blinder Revenue Summit. 

Keywords