BEHIND THE STRATEGY THAT LAUNCHED THE DEWALT® TOUGHSYSTEM® MUSIC
DEWALT®, a global leader in the world of tools and durable goods, was ready to launch their new ToughSystem® Music. To help promote this launch, DEWALT® challenged us to create an integrated campaign that would generate sales and interest in the product. In this 4-part series, we’ll examine the specific strategies and tactics used to help promote and launch the new DEWALT® ToughSystem® Music player. In part 3, we go in-depth to look at the gamification portion of our strategy.
Part 3: Playing to Win
In part 1 , we looked at a unique solution to help DEWALT® launch their ToughSystem® Music player. In part 2 , we gave you an inside look into how we created a strategy built to maximize synergy. In part 3, we’re bringing both together for a little thing we like to call “gamification”.
As it pertains to gamification, this is what we wrote in our last blog:
Last, but certainly not least, is the gamification portion of our strategy. The inclusion of gamification was a huge boon for this project. Gamification relies on a landing page where users sign up to enter a sweepstakes or contest. The gamification page features real-time social media feeds that use a campaign-specific hashtag from the brand(s) hosting the sweepstakes. Contestants earn additional entries into the contest for every post and tweet they like or share. This program incentivizes participation, which then turns participants into brand advocates.
The DEWALT® ToughSystem® Music gamification sweepstakes ran for six weeks and featured a detailed social calendar. The content during this time period ranged from free downloads of “When the Whistle Blows” and product videos, to product images and landing page links. We used #ToughSystemSweeps to create the campaign and pull posts and tweets into the page. We also promoted the prize packages that all included the ToughSystem® Music® player itself. Within the first week alone, we had thousands of users entered into the sweeps. By the end of the contest, we had garnered the thousands of social media sign-ups, likes, shares, favorites and retweets.
Crafting A Durable Goods Gamification Strategy
When crafting a strategy, the dream of every marketer is that it will go viral. Sure, you can spend thousands seeding your content and driving impressions, but if no one cares then all you’ve done is shown an ad over and over to an indifferent audience. The sweet spot is that moment when a fan becomes an advocate or ambassador. This is free, credible word of mouth, and we all know that word of mouth is incredibly powerful when it comes to people trying new brands or buying new products. If your friends think it’s good, you’re more likely to think the same. As you can see from the numbers above, we had many advocates and ambassadors spreading DEWALT’s message.
The trick is to build brand ambassadors in a way that is organic and genuine, but also offers an incentive as a thank you to those willing to help spread the message. This is the exact reason gamification is such a powerful tool. The gamification platform gives users the ability to share and engage with social content as much as they’d like, with the incentive of increased entries into a sweepstakes. It’s a win-win for all involved.
Gamification also offers the perk of having almost no barrier for involvement. To sign up, the user creates a profile that takes less than one minute to complete. Once they’ve registered, earning additional contest entries is as simple as clicking the like and share buttons from the social feeds that appear on the gamification page. By reducing the task of spreading your message to a mere click, without having to leave the page, it is incredibly easy for people to participate, which, of course, makes them more likely to participate.
Now, none of this would matter if people are just spamming their friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter, but the posts that are liked and shared come directly from the brand(s)’s feeds. This gives every brand the ability to control the messaging that goes out during this time period. This means the brand can promote a multitude of product benefits or content, and can even use this time period to promote other products using the campaign hashtag.
This is where gamification reigns supreme over other methods of user-participation, such as holding voting contests on a Facebook page. We’ve all seen posts from our friends asking us to go to a page to vote for their baby/pet/photograph to win some contest. Though the brand does this with the intention of getting new people to visit their site, what they’ve really done is asked their fans to bother their social media friends to go to a different page and perform one specific task. There’s no guarantee these new people will even click the link, let alone interact with the page. Generally, if they do click, they go to the voting portion, vote, and leave. No bueno.
What is bueno is the power of the gamification platform and what it can add to a marketing strategy. If you’re looking to harness the reach of your audience, and drive loyalty at the same time, gamification is the right play for you. It certainly was for the DEWALT® ToughSystem® Music.
In part 4, we’ll continue with our social theme as we look at how to launch a project through social media.