Case Study - "Real Men Eat Gardenburger" Photo Contest

The Challenge
For more than 20 years Gardenburger has paved the way for healthy meatless products. To continue that growth they wanted to expand their reach with men. To achieve that goal, Gardenburger turned to its PR firm, MWW Group, which developed the concept for the "Real Men Eat Gardenburger" campaign to show that Gardenburgers aren't just for vegetarians and women. The idea was to show real customers from all walks of life that enjoy Gardenburgers as part of a healthy lifestyle. A traditional campaign with one-way communication to their customers wouldn't work. Gardenburger wanted to engage its customers directly and get them involved in helping spread their message. The challenge was to figure out how to create and manage a compelling yet cost-effective social media promotion involving user-generated content and participation and launch it in a short period of time.

Our Solution
MWW Group created a new, customized Web site that served as the primary platform and gateway for the contest entries, then turned to Votigo in order to leverage its expertise in social media contests and promotions, Using the "Real Men Eat Gardenburger" Web site developed by MWW, Votigo constructed the back-end systems to support a contest that ensured optimum consumer engagement for Gardenburger. The result was the "Real Men Eat Gardenburger" Photo Contest! For a chance to win a one year's supply of Gardenburgers, a catered party for up to 25 people, a stainless steel gas grill and a flat screen TV, entrants submitted photos of themselves or the man in their lives along with a 500-character essay describing what makes them a "Real Man." The decision to use photo entries instead of video or audio was made because of the lower barrier to entry and the client's goal of high user participation. Through the contest, which was driven by Votigo's viral tools as well as media outreach and an aggressive radio promotion implemented by MWW Group, participants were encouraged to email friends and share their unique voting widgets on their social networking pages to help them get more votes while also spreading the Gardenburger message.

Votigo implemented the complete end-to-end contest using its premium contest platform running on the Votigo.com community site. Gardenburger selected a co-branded solution that included a custom landing page, custom contest pages, custom profile, embeddable contest and voting widgets, commenting, photo upload, friend invite tools, fraud-free voting, featured placements on Votigo.com, customized entry and voting periods, and analytic data on the contest and consumer engagement.

To ensure the Gardenburger brand was protected throughout the campaign Votigo helped construct a clear set of entry guidelines and decided upon a two-round contest with the final winner being chosen by Gardenburger. At the conclusion of the Voting Period, the 5 eligible entries with the most votes made it to round two of the contest. The Finalists were then judged by Gardenburger, to determine the Grand Prize winner, on the basis of the following judging criteria: Depiction of "Real Man" concept in essay/photo (25%); Depiction of Healthy Living as seen in photo and essay (25%); Most Compelling and Well-Written Essay (25%); Earth-Friendliness of Essay/Photo (25%).

Using the "Real Men" Web site as a gateway,Votigo implemented the contest using its premium contest platform running on the Votigo.com community site. Gardenburger received a co-branded solution that included a custom landing page, custom profile, contest widget, commenting, featured placements on Votigo.com, customized entry and voting periods, and analytic data on the contest and consumer engagement. Their consumer participants were completely immersed in the Gardenburger brand while viewing and interacting with the contest.

Votigo's Premium solution is ideal for brands that want a feature-rich social media contest customized to fit the look & feel of their brand.

• Photo or video upload, storage and playback
• Support for YouTube, MySpace, Google Video, Photobucket and Veoh.com video embed
• Complete end-to-end contest registration and user-voting interaction
• Fraud-free vote tracking
• Official contest rules
• Basic customization of look & feel of the contest pages
• RSS feed
• Moderator controls to ensure safe content
• Winner verification and announcements
• Opt-in email collection

Results
"We are very pleased with the outcome of the contest," said Bob Silver, a senior vice president with MWW Group's Seattle office, which led the Gardenburger campaign. "Votigo's flexible platform combined with their strong service orientation helped make the overall campaign very successful." The contest garnered nearly 200 photo entries, twice as many as the client expected. With 150,000 page views, over 75,000 votes and 1,000 user comments this type of social media contest highlights the effectiveness of consumer generated media as part of an overall advertising campaign.