5 social media competitions that win for their creativity
Five of the best social media competitions that we've seen in the last year, putting creativity over budget! Get inspiration for your next social media comp.
Looking back, established brands have a history of running competitions on social media. With the quality and volume of competitions that have run across social media platforms, choosing the top 5 was no mean feat.
The competitions didn’t have to be the biggest or most expensive that have run 2016. Instead, we were looking for the competitions that take creativity to the next level and solicit user excitement. Without further ado and in no particular order, the winners of the most creative social media competitions of the past year are:
Lazy Yak – Laziest Competition Ever
The Matilda Bay Brewing Company created a competition to mark the release of their newest craft beer, Lazy Yak. In a perfect reflection of the beer, the social media led comp was labeled the ‘laziest competition ever’, where entrants could do literally whatever they wanted for a chance to win one of 10 slabs of the beer. The thought process behind the campaign was to stray away from standard social media competitions that tend to ask a lot of their entrants and do the complete opposite.
The idea was a huge success with 1180 entries and a campaign that cost 14 times less than the industry standard cost per comment. The Matilda Bay Brewing Company spent under $1000 on the entire campaign and reached 123,114 Australian Facebook users. Examples of the ‘lazy’ entries the competition received are below:
Boost Australia – Father’s Day Moustache Match-Up
Boost Juice launched a competition for Father’s Day giving away $20 vouchers using a simple video graphic. Boost used the capabilities of Facebook video to gamify their competition. The video was a simple graphic of two moustaches bouncing up and down the screen across two moustache The aim of the competition was to pause the video when the two moustaches lined up perfectly in the outlines. Entrants had to post the screenshot along with a reason as to why they wanted to win the Father’s Day voucher.
This campaign was a creative success! This competition had a very low creation cost for Boost with the simplified graphic design and little to no heavy lifting. The gamification of the competition engaged the audience and encouraged them to participate. Boost received over 11,500 comments (entries) to the competition and, given this response, they have continued to utilise this gamified video format numerous times again with great .
Weetbix – Messy Kids Search
Weetbix first started the ‘Messy Kids’ competition in 2015 and it was such a success that they brought it back in 2016. The competition asks people to submit photos of their messy children eating breakfast, the messier the better. The competition was promoted through their social media platforms and hosted within Weetbix’s own website. Weetbix also utilised key , including swimmer Libby Trickett and her daughter, to represent the competition and the ‘Messy Kids’ lifestyle.
The competition received 2,507 entries, producing great user-generated content for Weetbix. Some of the entries are shown below:
Layaway Travel – GIF Comp
Layaway Travel recently ran a genius competition that utilised Facebook’s GIF They created a puzzle-like GIF where pieces were slowly removed to reveal the picture underneath. The idea of the competition was to be the first person to name the landmark and country shown in the picture. Each week another piece would be taken away making it easier for entrants to guess. This competition made it into our Top 5 list because of its original use of GIFs to drive an interactive and emotive campaign. The GIF format is a low to medium quality moving image or video making it fairly easy and cost-effective to create.
The competition was a success as it was interactive, fun and required some level of critical thinking. This competition also played on the same gamification qualities which were mentioned earlier. Finally, as entrants only had to name the landmark and place, the barrier to entry was quite.
Nutella Road Trip
Nutella came up with a simple competition to draw attention to their campaign ‘The Nutella Road Trip’. They drove a giant Nutella Toaster Food Truck around Australia and stopped in various places to sell delicious Nutella filled treats.
To encourage people to visit the Nutella Food Truck, they ran a competition where their audience could win a Nutella prize pack by posting a photo interacting with the Nutella Food Truck.
This competition made it into the Top 5 for its innovative use of user generated content, used to organically spread the word about the real-world food truck.
While these were only five of the thousands of social medi
a competitions we saw throughout 2016, we commend them for their creativity and genius use of the affordances offered to them through various social media platforms. We can’t wait to see what competitions will take out the top titles in 2017!
