Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - The Phrase That Pays: Marketing Contests

Episode Date: May 20, 2023

Marketing contests can be tricky business.On one hand, contests can be designed to help companies achieve certain business goals.On the other hand, companies can lose control over them pretty quickly.This week, we look at some of the most interesting – and hilarious – marketing contests.Including one about a city that held a contest to name a new building – and the public voted overwhelmingly to name it after a past mayor named Harry Baals.True story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling. Subscribe now and don't miss a single beat. This is an Apostrophe podcast production. Your teeth look whiter than no nose. You're not you when you're hungry.

You're a good hand with all teeth. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. Dolly Parton is one of the most successful country artists of all time. Dolly also holds three Guinness World Records. She has the record for the most decades on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart by a female performer, seven decades and counting, amazing. She has the most number one hits on the hot country charts with 25. And she has the most total hits on the country charts by a female artist with an astounding 109. Dolly is one of a kind.

And also has one of the most instantly recognizable looks in the entertainment industry. Big blonde wigs, high heels, bright costumes, and a big sense of humor about it all. When asked about her small feet once, she said they were tiny because nothing grows in the shade. As Dolly says, she is a self-made woman and she has the doctor bills to prove it. In her memoir, Dream More, Dolly tells a very amusing story. One day, on a trip to Los Angeles, she heard about a Dolly Parton look-alike contest that was being held at a local bar. She had a kooky idea. Wouldn't it be funny to go down there and enter the contest herself? To do that, she decided to over-exaggerate everything about her appearance. She made her beauty mark bigger, her eyes bigger, her hair bigger. She made everything bigger. When she was all dolled up, Dolly and a group of her

friends made their way down to the contest. When Dolly got to the bar, she didn't let on that she was the real Dolly Parton. She was given a number, like everybody else, and told to get in line. The contest was to be judged by the audience. Contestants were instructed to walk across the stage, and the votes would be cast by applause. The biggest applause would win. So, one by one, the contestants paraded in front of the audience. When it came to Dolly's turn,

she smiled and sashayed across the stage and lost to a man. Not only that, Dolly Parton got the least applause. She said she was dying of laughter inside. Little did the contest know they had the real thing in their midst. Dolly Parton. There's no one like her. Well, almost no one. You never can tell with a contest. The marketing industry is famous for contests.

They can be a great way to attract a lot of quick attention. They can create goodwill. Radio stations love contests when it comes time for ratings. And contests can be designed to help companies reach very specific strategic goals. You just have to hope the contest doesn't go sideways. You're under the influence. All marketing-driven contests have an underlying strategy. Take Goldfish Crackers. They are a top-selling kiddie snack.

But when the pandemic hit, the need for school snacks disappeared overnight. The Goldfish brand had to figure out a way to keep sales afloat in a very difficult time. So a new strategy was developed. In order to keep Goldfish sales from tanking, the task was to establish the fish-shaped crackers as a snack not just for kids, but also for adults. That plan was fueled by research, which had revealed that 40% of goldfish crackers are consumed by adults. Because previous goldfish advertising had been aimed at kids, an older audience was a big, untapped market. Another insight research unearthed was that adults don't eat goldfish one by one like kids. They eat them by the handful.

That led to a contest idea. Goldfish came up with a go-for-the-handful challenge. The contest was to see who could hold the most goldfish crackers in their hand at once. Now all goldfish needed was a big advertising idea to promote the contest. Step one, look for someone with big hands. That search led to the NBA. Bulban Marjanovic is a 7'4", 290-pound center who plays for the Dallas Mavericks. He has the largest hands in NBA history, measuring 27 centimeters or 10.7 inches long and 30 centimeters or 12 inches wide. He was perfect. So Goldfish hired him to be the spokesperson for the contest.

With Marjanovic in place, Goldfish posed the following challenge to the general public. Can you hold more goldfish in one handful than Boban? The contest was labeled Go for the Handful and was launched on TikTok. Nobody beats Boban. 1, 10, 20, too easy. 30, 40, 60.

No stress for Boban. 90, 100, 150, 200. Getting nervous? 250. 301? I want to see you guys try. 301. Yep, Boban could hold 301 goldfish in one hand. That was the number to beat. The winner would be named the official spokeshand of goldfish,

would appear in goldfish's social media, and they would get free crackers for a year. 25 runners-up would get a giant special edition bag of goldfish signed by Boban. When Go For The Handful was launched, hundreds of thousands of people entered the contest. They found all sorts of creative ways of loading their hands with crackers. Some tried to outsmart the contest rules by using sticky substances like Miracle Whip or honey to keep the crackers from falling out of their hands.

Even other NBA players took the challenge. TV commercials were produced to drum up even more interest in the contest. Impressive handful you got there. How many do you think you got? Let me count real quick. One goldfish. Two goldfish. 77 goldfish, 78 goldfish, 81, 82, 259, 261. In the first few weeks alone, the TikTok video got 9 billion, not million, 9 billion views. It would go on to have over 12 billion.

923,000 people submitted over 1.8 million videos. When TikTok viewers were asked what they thought about the goldfish challenge, 97% were positive. TikTok said the contest beat every single benchmark it had for success. And it was a big win for the cracker company, as all the contestants were adults, the exact target market the brand was after. The eventual contest winner was a woman named Michelle Chin, who somehow managed to hold 325 goldfish in her normal-sized hand. You gotta hand it to goldfish. When it was all said and done,

the cracker had attracted a new adult audience and enjoyed a 14% sales increase in the middle of the pandemic. BMW in New Zealand staged an interesting contest recently. It was part contest, part April Fool's Day challenge. Here's what they did. A local BMW dealership ran a front-page newspaper ad in the New Zealand Herald. The headline said, April Fool's Day Special. The ad stated that the first person to show up at the dealership on April 1st with their current vehicle and the ad in hand would win a free BMW worth $50,000.

The ad also said to ask for an employee named Tom. Now, if you saw an April Fool's ad like that on April Fool's Day, you would probably ignore it, right? Well, everybody did. Except one person. Her name was Tiana Marsh. She and a friend drove up to the dealership in her 15-year-old Nissan, walked into the showroom, and asked for Tom. Hi, how can I help? Are you looking for Tom? Yes, Tom, he'll be on the left, so if you just follow the path down, he'll be right with you.

Great, thank you. When a salesperson named Tom appeared, Tiana Marsh handed him the newspaper ad. Tom asked if she had brought her car. Tiana said yes, her Nissan was parked outside. That's when Tom pulled a sheet off a brand new BMW and told Tiana she had just won it. Congratulations. You guys are the brand new owners of BMW. It was a reverse April Fool's Day joke.

BMW had dared people to risk looking like a fool by showing up to the dealership to ask for a free car on April Fool's Day, and no one took them up on the challenge, except for one person. BMW received worldwide press for the ad, and Tiana Mars drove away in her brand new car, sporting a license plate that said, No Fool. Oh my God, we won a car! Sometimes contests go exceedingly well. And sometimes they exceedingly don't. Radio stations love contests. They usually happen during ratings periods, increasing the amount of time listeners

tune in. That boosts the station's ratings, so the station can attract more advertising dollars. In Singapore, a radio station called Gold 905 created a contest called the Celebrity Name Drop. Gold 905 has a brand new game that can win you $10,000 worth of prizes, including cash and shopping sprees. It's Celebrity Name Drop. The station assembled a montage of 14 one-second clips of celebrity voices, each reciting one word of the following phrase that pays. Gold 905.

The station that sounds good and makes you feel good. Gold 905. The station that sounds good and makes you feel good. Gold 905. The station that sounds good and makes you feel good. Contestants had to correctly identify all 14 celebrity names in order to win the $10,000 prize. One day, a man named Mohammed Shallahahan called in and rhymed off 14 names. He was told he got 13 of them correct. Two weeks later, another listener called in and rhymed off the identical list and was awarded the $10,000 prize. That's when people on Facebook noticed that both answers had been exactly the same

and wanted to know why Shellahan wasn't given the prize two weeks earlier. The station said Shellahan, who has a slight accent, had mispronounced the very first celebrity name in the sequence, which was Tony Hadley, lead singer of Spandau Ballet. And they said their decision was final. So, Mohamed Shellahan sent a Hail Mary email to Tony Hadley. After reviewing the recording of Shellahan pronouncing his name, Hadley sent back this video. Hi Mohamed, Mohamed Shellahan, this is Tony Hadley here back this video. Hi, I'm Mohammed, Mohammed Shellahan. This is Tony Hadley here from the UK. Now, I've listened back to the tape

and as far as I'm concerned, you pronounced my name absolutely correctly. Tony Hadley, you might have said Hadley, this slight accent, but as far as I'm concerned, you know, you said my name correctly. So you should be entitled to whatever the prize was. The radio station still refused to budge. When the BBC caught wind of the situation and contacted the station,

Gold 905's position shifted slightly. It offered to make a goodwill gesture and give Shellahan half the prize money. That ignited a wave of outrage from listeners. With that, the radio station walked back its decision and decided to give both winners $10,000 each. The contest designed to increase ratings had created bad will with listeners, bad press, and it ended up costing the station $10,000 more than it had budgeted for. This much is true.

Back in 2015, B.C. Ferries created a contest to name three new ships. The existing fleet was aging, as some vessels were more than 50 years old, and three new ones were being built at a cost of $165 million. BC Ferries decided to invite the public to help name the new ships. The CEO asked people to think creatively and offered three $500 ferry travel vouchers as prizes. It was good public relations. The contest rules were as follows. Names must be gender neutral and be easy to spell. Names should not be geography specific or reference an individual or event. Names should not contain words currently in use on existing ships like spirit or queen.

And one more thing, the final naming decision would be left up to the company, not a public vote. As it turned out, BC Ferries would be very glad of that last stipulation. When the hashtag Name the Ship's deadline finally arrived, the good news was that over 7,100 entries

were submitted, resulting in 21,000 name suggestions. The bad news? The contest coincided with recent ferry rate increases and various service disruptions. That made for some very disgruntled

customers, which inspired the following name suggestions on the BC Ferries Facebook page. Spirit of the Wallet Sucker Queen of No Other Choice Spirit of Unfetteret Sucker, Queen of No Other Choice,

Spirit of Unfettered Capitalism, HMS Cantiford, The SS Should Have Been a Bridge, and the memorable Floating Crapsicle. Some submitted names for each of the three ships, including Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe. The B.C. Ferry's CEO did his best to put a positive face on the proceedings, saying the humorous suggestions and the resulting press really helped promote the contest, throwing an arm around the there's-no-such bad press theory. When the contest finally ended, the BC Ferries Executive Management Committee

looked at all the entries and chose the following three names. The Salish Orca, the Salish Eagle, and the Salish Raven. Proving that age-old business, Maxim. Sometimes you don't count the votes, you weigh them.

One day, Walmart teamed up with a product called Sheetz Brand Energy Strips to create a contest. The contest was designed to achieve three goals. One, to generate goodwill. Two, promote Sheetz energy strips, which are caffeine-infused strips that melt on your tongue. And three, get

more likes from younger shoppers on local Walmart Facebook pages. Sheetz energy strips are endorsed by rapper Pitbull, so he was recruited to be the centerpiece of the promotion. The contest was simple. The Walmart location that gets the most Facebook likes would win a live Pitbull concert and meet and greet. Walmart was banking on leveraging Pitbull's large fan base to generate excitement for the contest. It was a good call.

The contest attracted a lot of media attention. Everything was going great, until the contest was hijacked. A Boston-based blogger started an Exile Pitbull hashtag. His goal? Send Pitbull to the most remote Walmart possible. So he encouraged his followers to like the Walmart location in Kodiak, Alaska. Suddenly, that quiet Walmart store started gaining 50 Facebook likes per minute.

Once the total hit 35,000, it got the attention of ABC, CNN, NPR, and Time magazine. Kodiak, Alaska has a population of 5,581. The only way to get there is by ship or small plane. The likes hit 40,000. Meanwhile, loyal Pitbull fans tried to counter the mounting likes with their own hashtag, KeepPitbull305.

305 being the area code for Miami, Florida, Pitbull's hometown. But the Miami Walmarts garnered less than 1,000 votes. Kodiak, Alaska was closing in on 50,000. Halfway through the contest period, Pitbull tweeted, I hear there's bear repellent in Kodiak, Alaska. He clearly had a sense of humor about where this contest was heading, and he doubled down on his promise to perform at whatever location received the most votes.

When the final votes were tallied, Kodiak, Alaska had amassed over 70,000. No other Walmart location even came close. So Pitbull packed his bags and headed north to Alaska. Pitbull not only packed his bags for the trip, he packed the prankster too, the guy who had started the Exile Pitbull hashtag and even paid for his trip. When Pitbull's private jet landed, it looked like the entire city came out to welcome the rapper.

People raved about the concert. Pitbull met with fans, visited the local Walmart, and was given the key to the city by the mayor. At the end of the day, Sheetz Energy Strips got the promotion it was looking for, local Walmarts got thousands of new likes on their Facebook pages, Kodiak Alaska got a concert

they never thought was possible, and Pitbull got a lot of respect for not backing out. The contest that could have gone south by going north ended up being a huge success. The local government of Fort Wayne, Indiana needed a name. It had just built a new civic center and invited the public to weigh in. A web page was created called feedbackfortwayne.org where suggestions could be posted and the public could vote for the name they liked best.

Over 30,000 votes were cast. 24,000 of them were for one name in particular. Harry Balls. Harry Balls was one of the most beloved mayors in the city's history. He was the longest tenured mayor, serving four terms, first from 1934 to 1947, then again from 51 to 54. Not only was he respected and incredibly dedicated, he died while in office.

That's why Fort Wayne residents overwhelmingly voted to call the civic building the Harry Balls Government Center. Not everybody was on board with that idea. Harry Balls was the mayor of Fort Wayne back in the 1930s and 40s. He even served a term in the 1950s. We have a street named after Harry Balls,

so what's the big deal about naming the new city county government building after him? Local politicians acknowledged that Harry Balls was a respected mayor in his time, but worried that not everyone outside of Fort Wayne would know that. They feared naming the building after Mayor Balls would make Fort Wayne the butt of endless late night television jokes. But supporters of Harry Balls argued the mayor was an important part of the city's history, and it was unfair he shouldn't be recognized simply because his name made some people snicker. Harry Balls' great-grandnephew, Jim Balls, agreed.

I feel that it'd be an honor to have the building named after him. And so many people have voted for it. I say, let the people have the say. In the end, the citizens of Fort Wayne, Indiana were ignored. Like the BC Ferries naming competition, the final decision was left up to city council, not the vote tally. When the official ribbon was cut, the new building was christened Citizen Square. Harry Balls had received 24,000 votes. Citizen Square received five. Contests can be tricky things. Sometimes they can be a smart business strategy, and other times it's easy to lose control of the proceedings.

While the pandemic created a big sales problem for Goldfish Crackers, a fun contest rescued the brand by attracting an older buyer. BMW created a dare on April Fool's Day that almost everyone ignored and generated goodwill media coverage right around the world. In the other column, a contest can get hairy pretty quickly. Bad press almost sunk the BC Ferries contest before it got going. And even a company as powerful as Walmart lost control of its promotion to pranksters. While they're meant to be fun, contests can turn into a contest of wills between organizers and the public. When the public is invited to vote on a decision, companies have to give over a certain amount of control. Maybe not over the final results, but definitely over the journey to get there.

As Fort Wayne discovered, it can be a very bumpy ride from Harry Balls to Citizen Square when you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terrastream Mobile Recording Studio. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound Engineer, Jeff Devine. Research, Jillian Gora.

Under the Influence theme by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre. Tunage provided by APM Music. Follow me on social at Terry O. Influence. This is Season 12. If you like this episode, you might also enjoy A Prize in Every Box, Premiums, Toys, and Box Tops. Season 2, Episode 2. You'll find it in our archives.

You can also find our podcasts on the new Apostrophe YouTube channel. And if you think there are too many ads in a show about advertising, your vote has been counted. You can now listen to our podcasts ad-free on Amazon Music. See you next time. Fun fact! Years after Harry Balls was gone, his family changed the pronunciation of their last name to Bales.

I guess it bailed them out of some hairy situations.