Love Finds a Way

If you’re targeting engaged couples — and, more specifically, the female members of said couples — nothing earns branding points like a genuine love story.

That’s why Crate & Barrel and online lifestyle resource DailyCandy asked couples to tell their relationship stories in the Ultimate Wedding Contest. A public vote decided the finalists, and judges determined which couple received the grand prize of a $100,000 wedding designed by celebrity wedding planner Jo Gartin (there were more than $25,000 in consolation prizes, as well).

More than 9,000 couples entered the contest, each maintaining an active $2,000 Crate & Barrel wedding registry with 50 product lines.

It was “a massive moneymaker right out of the gate, because of the gift registries,” says Jordan Behan, director of community relations for Vancouver, B.C.-based Strutta, a social media firm that specializes in online contests and built the Ultimate Wedding Contest.

The Crate & Barrel contest website generated 6 million views, making it Strutta’s most successful campaign to date; Crate & Barrel hasn’t revealed sales relating to the contest.

The stories submitted were captivating, funny, sad, inspiring or downright heart-wrenching, like Mary’s:

“On May 27, 2009, my fiancé Densey, a Chicago police officer, was paralyzed in a head-on collision while responding to a burglary call. He was in a coma for four weeks, but we were married in the hospital when he awoke. Almost a year later, Densey grows stronger daily, but our lives are forever changed. With mounting medical bills, we can’t think about our dream wedding on a beach in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. Densey has a machine that helps him stand for 30 minutes. To see him waiting for me, words cannot describe the feeling that would give me.”

This particular story became an Internet hit, winning the popular vote with 21,562.

“In this age of Facebook, Twitter and social media, there is a total renewed sense of energy of sharing information and getting people on board,” says Meredith Howard, communications director for DailyCandy. “The contest was created with that in mind.”

Once stories were posted, the contest took on a life of its own. Contestants created Facebook fan pages, tweeted, created YouTube campaign videos and commented on blogs — essentially executing viral marketing campaigns. Combine their efforts with Crate & Barrel’s in-store marketing and DailyCandy’s 3.2 million subscribers, and the Ultimate Wedding Contest was the ultimate branding machine.

“We do know we’ve achieved two important goals,” says Marjorie Daugherty, director of gift registry for Crate & Barrel. “First, to give couples the opportunity to share their love stories and excitement about our brand and registry program, and two, to create a sense of community among our gift registry customers.

“It’s been a really inspiring project for all concerned,” she says.

Low cost, high reward
Even an elaborate sweepstakes like this can be produced at relatively low cost, says Sucharita Mulpuru, vice president and principal analyst for Forrester Research. “You let the community do most of the messaging for you, and you get a few incremental customers.”

Behan cautions, however, that not just any sweepstakes will generate such high levels of branding benefits. “A sweepstakes is one thing: You are giving me your contact information and maybe you’re agreeing to join a list,” he says. “But that’s where the exchange ends. With video and photo contests that have a popular vote, even if the ultimate decision is made by a panel of judges once finalists are declared, you have people actively pursuing their friends and family in the name of your brand, actively driving traffic back to your campaign home page.” The resulting search engine optimization benefits, he says, “are astronomical.”

The Ultimate Wedding Contest is certainly not the first success story in a social media contest. Strutta developed an online video contest for amateur filmmakers on behalf of the New Zealand travel industry. In February, five finalists were flown to New Zealand, where they had three weeks to pre-produce, shoot and post-produce their concept with a NZ$100,000 budget, the help of a small crew and director Peter Jackson’s post-production facilities in Wellington. The eventual winner convinced her college alma mater to contact alumni on her behalf to vote for her.

Behan says that the New Zealand and Crate & Barrel case studies are examples of how important contests are to not only the customers, but to the respective brands.

“If you have a relevant and valuable prize that generates excitement in the community, you create competitive voting environments where any number of your top contestants can duke it out and go beyond their own expectations,” Behan says. “We have seen some very innovative ways people have reached out to their networks.”