Campaign of the Year
Winner: HGTV Home and Garden Refresh – USA TODAY
This promotion won Campaign of the Year because it drove results for the media company AND the advertiser! The USA Today team curated this sweepstakes with a relevant and valuable prize that attracted a large audience. The national grand prize was: $100,000 and a virtual design consultation from the hosts of an HGTV show. Plus, a landscaping prize package powered by STIHL, valued at $1,500. The two national second place prizes: $10,000 and a virtual design consultation with the hosts. Now that will entice people to enter for sure!
This sweepstakes garnered 145K entries, with 15% of the entrants liking the sponsor’s Facebook page. They also landed over 15,000 marketing leads for the sponsor and collected much needed zero party data through a simple lead-gen question, asking ‘What Fall projects are at the top of your list?’ This data provides highly useful information the sponsor can use in future marketing efforts. For example, they now know that 18% of entrants put Lawn, Landscaping, Outdoor Living at the top of their fall project list!
Overall, this campaign generated $2.2MM for USA Today, and with the incredible results they were able to provide – their sponsor committed to a SPRING Home and Garden Refresh Sweepstakes!
Best Advertiser Lead-Gen Campaign
Winner: Savor the Season SweepSteaks – USA Today
This sweepstakes boasted a prize of steaks for a whole year, and USA Today’s audience was hungry for it! All of the exposure resulted in 1,800 individual sales for their advertiser. With an average sale being $90, this resulted in $162,000 in revenue from the leads from this promotion. USA Today walked away with $20,000 in revenue and because of the success of this campaign, this advertiser is already doing promotions more consistently with USA Today!
Finalists:
- Generac Generator Electric Doctor 2024 Sweepstakes – WQAD-TV
- Cartful of Cash: Rhino Cart All Terrain Mover $5K Giveaway – WGN Radio
- Win A Fence Sweepstakes – Leighton – Grand Forks
- 2024 Wish and Win – Midland Daily News
- Find Jack Contest 2024 – Kern County Family Magazine
- Porter’s Fireside Giveaway – County 10
Best Editorial, Promotions & Programming Campaign
Winner: Feed the Farmer – WWTI-TV & EWTI-TV
With a diverse group of farmers cultivating everything from lavender to dairy and beef, users nominated a farmer’s story for a chance to win a farm to table meal in the fields. But this wasn’t about the prize. Each farmer’s story was showcased on the station’s news programming and website, which helped drive a ton of support for local farmers within the community and also generate $20K in revenue for WWTI-TV & EWTI-TV.
- Women Lead Change – Clinton Herald
- 12 Days of Charities – River Radio
- Senior Life Photo Contest – My Horry News
- 2024 Recipes from our Readers Sweepstakes – Times News Media Group
- Dollar Bill Game – KZPK-FM
Best Audience Builder Campaign
Winner: WGN-TV Birthday Club – WGN-TV
The team at WGN-TV runs a Birthday Club sweepstakes each month, with a different sponsor each month. They say this is their biggest ‘bang for your buck’ promotion they offer because not only do the sponsors get exposure from the month-long promotion campaign, but they also get a spot in their newsletter, on the WGN Morning News, social media, and more! Throughout 2024, this campaign brought in a staggering 13,000 opt-ins and $50,000 in revenue!
- Chattanooga Black History Quiz – Chattanooga Times Free Press
- Paint The Town Pink – KBBK-FM
- Christmas Music Weekends Tree Sweepstakes – K-LOVE
- Holiday Barnyard Blitz – KCLD-FM
Best Recurring Revenue Campaign
Winner: Extraordinary Women – Austin American Statesman
Now in it’s 5th year, this 9 month campaign – sponsored by a local law firm – generated $60,000 the Austin American Statesman. Each month, two women were recognized in six publications distributed across the Austin area, as well as featured in an article online. This campaign also received over 250+ entries and over 100 opt-ins for their sponsor.
- ECHO Product of the Month – WGN Radio
- Seasonal Sponsorships – KVIA-TV
- The Sidelines Star Athlete of the Week – The Pilot
- Like Us and Love It – WGN-TV
- Pro Football Pick’em – Sheridan Media
Best Data Strategy
Winner: Rawlings Experience Sweepstakes – KTVI-TV
With a goal of promoting the grand opening of the new Rawlings experience and driving holiday sales, the team at KTIV-TV crafted two timely sweepstakes – one for the world series and one for the holidays – that not only helped drive foot traffic to the opening of the new Rawlings Experience, but also gathered valuable opt-ins, demographic information, and buying intent data for the holiday season. Rawlings marketing team was able to drive sales via 20% off coupon code in the sweepstakes thank you email that was sent to all 3K users that participated. This was not only a hit with the advertiser – KTVI-TV also generated an astounding $31K in revenue.
- Name That Pig – WKDZ/WHVO/WPKY
- Vala’s Season Pass – NRG – Omaha
- How Sunset Safari Savvy Are You? – WKRN-TV
- Tin Wis Resort Giveaway – Black Press Media/CMG
Best National Sweepstakes Campaign
Winner: AARP Fighting Fraud Month Contest – WGN-TV
If you were to look up ‘major national sweepstakes success’, you’d find this from the WGN-TV team! They tailored the national sweepstakes to their sponsor – AARP – and even utilized the promotion to educate their audience on fraud prevention and promote the tools AARP has to help their clients prevent fraud. They secured over 1,000 leads for AARP and brought in a whopping $50,000 in revenue for this multi-media campaign.
- $5,000 Car Payments Sweepstakes 2024 – Idaho State Journal
- Hometown Shopping Sweepstakes – Sheridan Media
- 2024 Q4 $15,000 Sweepstakes – Lakeland Media
- $5,000 Bail Money – KFGE-FM
Most Creative Promotion
Winner: Okanagan Free Ride – Vernon Matters
The Vernon Matters team crafted an advertisement campaign where they had approximately 40 businesses purchase “stops” for our vehicle giveaway. They were present at each business for 3 hours each stop, welcoming hundreds of listeners, and giving the client ample opportunities to generate sales/leads/impact. The Free Ride promotion required listeners visit the stop to receive the special codeword for that stop, and enter it an embedded Second Street promotion on their website! The timed entry for the contesting, along with using set codewords, allowed them increased control, so it encouraged people to be punctual. This was their most financially successful Free Ride campaign to date, bringing in $100,000 in revenue!
- The Eras Experience – NRG – Omaha
- Elf Shenanigan Showdown Photo Contest – My Horry News
- 30th Anniversary Grand Prize Game – WGN-TV
- Stupid Human of the Week – KOOO-FM
Best Branded Content Campaign
Winner: Recycling Quiz – Federated – Fort Wayne
Based on the successful ‘Clean the Drains’ campaigns they ran in 2023, the team at Federated – Fort Wayne joined up with the City of Fort Wayne once again in 2024. This time, the goal was to use a quiz to educate the community about recycling dos and don’ts in conjunction with a series of videos featuring the Federated – Fort Wayne Morning Team. With over 1,000 users participating, 600 pledges from users ‘to do their part properly dispose of Household waste’, 350 new opt-ins for the City of Fort Wayne, this campaign was a clean sweep.
- Cafe Rio Would You Rather Quiz – KSL.com
- 7 Cedars Casino Great Outdoor – USA Today
- Nashville Zoo Quiz – AL.com
- Books to Explore at SBF 2024 – Connect Savannah
Best Niche Ballot
Winner: 2025 Kaboom Awards – Kidding Around Greenville
The Kaboom Awards have become an important way of executing Kidding Around Greenville’s strategy of being more present in physical and tangible ways in their local community. This past year ended up being unexpectedly challenging when Hurricane Helene hit their region right before the voting phase was supposed to start. Despite this disaster in their community, they still promoted an extremely successful campaign. They received over 12,000 votes and secured over $30,000 in revenue.
They also have had advertisers tell them that they have found new customers through their Kaboom awards, and Kidding Around Greenville has successfully identified new, strong advertising partners through the success of the Kaboom Awards!
- Plow Personalities: Name the Blizzard Brigade – County 10
- Thank A Farmer – KFGE-FM
- Best Michelada Contest – KESQ-TV
- 2024 Football Fans’ Choice Awards – My Horry News
- CMA Ballot – KZPK-FM
- 225 Restaurant Celebration – 225 Magazine
Best ‘Best Of’ Ballot: Small Market
Winner: Best of the Illinois Valley – Shaw Media
In 2023, Shaw Media’s Readers Choice/Listeners Choice program generated $60,000 in print and $4,100 in radio. In 2024, they decided to make some changes to their programs, and they reached out to Julie Foley and Matt Hummert for help, and the Best of Illinois Valley was born. They created a 3-phase regional Best Of program that, in year one, shattered expectations across the board and has become household brand within the community. They set a revenue goal of $90K and smashed it to the tune of $166K. But that’s just the beginning…based on this success, they’ve been able to replicate the program in other markets that have been just as successful.
- Best of the Pines 2024 – The Pilot
- Best of Western Kentucky – WKDZ-FM
- Best of Denton – Denton Record-Chronicle
- 2024 WXXV Viewer’s Choice Awards – WXXV-TV
- 2024 Laredo Morning Times Readers’ Choice – Laredo Morning Time
- Best Of Janesville/Beloit – Boise Weekly
Best ‘Best Of’ Ballot: Mid-Size Market
Winner: Best of the Best – Chattanooga Times Free Press
In 2024, the Chattanooga Times Free Press team incorporated branded content into sales packages and their Best Of produced book. They took the leap from a newsprint tab with a high glossy cover to a complete high-end magazine with branded content stories available for purchase, and their audience loved it! They were able to secure over 2,000 opt-ins each for their 4 different email lists and $845,000 in revenue from Best Of sales packages and event sponsorship sales.
- Best of the Grand Strand 2024 – WMBF-TV
- Best Of Southern Maryland – Southern Maryland News
- Best Of SRQ Local 2024 – SRQ Magazine
- Best of Jax – Folio Weekly
Best ‘Best Of’ Ballot: Large Market
Winner: TribLIVE Best of the Best – Tribune-Review
The TribLive team made some changes to their program this year that really allowed them to smash their goals. They decided to offer a Mega Package where advertisers committed to purchasing packages for each round, if they advanced, at the 2023 rate, therefore avoiding the 2024 rate increase. They also decided to inform their winners of their winning status during the special section sales phase, which led to a $25,000 increase in special section packages over 2023. Overall, their 2024 Best of program revenue was $395,000 which is nearly $41,000 over 2023. In addition, their team sold 544 total packages, 33 more than 2023!
- 2024 Best of Hawaii – KITV-TV
- Naples Community’s Choice– Naples Daily News
- Best of Madison 2024– Madison Magazine
- A-List 2024 – St. Louis Magazine
- Best of Western Washington –KING-TV
Best Photo Contest
Winner: The Bark & Soul Eras – The Pilot
The Pilot puts on a pet photo contest every summer and offers discounted ad rates in a pet-themed special section in their lifestyle magazine. When brainstorming the 2024 theme, they decided to couple the PineStraw magazine’s tagline of ‘the art & soul of the Sandhills’ with the popularity of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, so they named their contest “The Bark & Soul Eras” and designed all the contest graphics to mimic the tour poster. All photos were printed in the July issue of their magazine, highlighting the winner. Their team determined which Era the photos fit into based on the theme of the corresponding Taylor Swift album, and organized the pages of the magazine by Era. They sold a solo sponsorship and several pages of ads in the pet section. All of this culminated in $6,050 for The Pilot!
- USA’s Favorite Pet – USA Today
- Cutest Couple Photo Contest – WGN-TV
- Cutest Baby Photo Contest – My Horry News
- Big Catch Photo Contest – Clinton Herald
- Pumpkin Carving Photo Contest – Kern County Family Magazine
- Thanks Pass It On – KCLD-FM
Best Photo Gallery
Winner: 107 Days of Summer – KBBK-FM
The KBBK-FM staff created a list of 107 fun summer activities, and shared pictures of station staff participating all summer long, while also encouraging listeners to do the same. This was a fun way to provide their title sponsor with mentions and exposure throughout the entire summer, got their station staff out in the public, and engaged listeners.
- Send Us Your Snow Pics! – Chattanooga Times Free Press
- Chicago Dogs Photo Contest – WGN-TV
- Back to School Photo Gallery – County 10
- 2024 Celebrate Michigan Photo Contest – The Detroit New
- Behind the Lens In The Villages® – The Villages Daily Sun
Best Poll
Winner: $25K 4-Quarter Pick’em – KOZN-AM
To celebrate 1620 The Zone’s 25th anniversary, KOZN-AM created the 4-Quarter Pick’em to give away $2,500 a week for ten weeks. Staff chose five college and five NFL games each week, and listeners would select who they though would win. If listeners signed up for the station’s eblast, they were given the week’s secret link to enter their picks 24 hours before those who don’t receive the email.
Each week’s winner was crowned according to the first entry to correctly guess all ten wins. In the end, they received nearly 7,000 entries, almost 100 new email opt-ins, and nearly $10k in revenue.
- Backyard Brawl 2024 – Longhorns vs Aggies – Victoria Advocate
- Presidential Debate Poll – KTLA-TV
- Where Would You Like to See a New Jerry’s Sno Cones Location? – The Daily Memphian
- Abortion Amendment Ballot Poll – Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
- What makes You Think of Elkins-Randolph County, WV? – New South Media
Best Sweepstakes
Winner: Handyman for a Day – with Lou Manfredini – WGN Radio
This sweepstakes combined a mix of what WGN Radio does best – contests and one of their beloved radio personalities. One of their sellers pitched the idea of a sweepstakes – utilizing WGN Radio’s personality Lou Manfredini – to promote Ace’s Handyman Services division. Ace had advertised with WGN Radio in the past, but had not done much with them recently. They sweepstakes went off without a hitch and brought Ace over 450+ users who were interested in more information from them. WGN Radio brought in $12,000 in revenue and because of the success of this promotion, Ace is considering another campaign and a deeper “influencer” relationship with Lou!
- Shania Twain “C’Mon Over (to Vegas)” Sweepstakes – Sheridan Media
- ABC’S Days of Giving – KVIA-TV
- Ultimate Summer Fun Giveaway – MetroFamily Magazine
- Monster Truck Suite Giveaway – KELO-TV
- Bassett Furniture Brick $5,000 Gift Card – Asbury Park Press
- St Patrick’s Day Sweeps – My Horry News
- Texas Renaissance Festival – KHOU-TV
Best Quiz
Winner: Jingle Bucks Giveaway – Federated – South Bend
My Deals Michiana is South Bend’s daily deals website where users can purchase “deals” from local advertisers. Heading into the holiday season, the Federate – South Bend team created a quiz that was essentially an interactive survey to gain insights on shopping habits and interest. $1,562 was generated from click throughs in bounce back emails and of that $325 was from new customers!
- Back To The Future Quiz – KBBK-FM
- Which Shelter Pet Should You Adopt? – Sheridan Media
- How Much Do You Love Downtown Conway? – My Horry News
- Which Pittsburgh Skyscraper Are You? – NEXTPittsburgh
- Opioid Awareness Quiz – Kane County Chronicle
- WXIN Girl Scout Quiz – WXIN-TV
Best Voting Bracket
Winner: What’s Your Clark County Fair Favorite? – The Columbian
The goal of this bracket was to increase awareness of the various elements of the Clark County Fair and to drive ticket/concert ticket sales. And this bracket delivered! Over 1,200 people participated and the Clark County Fair collected nearly 300 opt-ins. This advertiser thought this promotion was so successful that they submitted it as a winning idea to their trade group and actually won! The Columbian also secured their partnership with The Clark County Fair as a recurring advertiser and brought in $25,000 in revenue.
- Ultimate Home Improvement Show Challenge – The Press Democrat
- Munch Madness – KLIN-AM
- 2024 Coolest Thing Made in Oregon – OregonLive.com
- Snowball Fight 2024 – Baltimore Magazine
- Fan Challenge – WTOL-TV
- STL Magazine Food Fight – St. Louis Magazine
- Merry Movie Matchup – KMID-TV
Best Small Market Program
Winner: The Pilot – Southern Pines, NC
Every year The Pilot CONTINUES to surpass the absolute stellar work they’ve done the year before, and every year we are so excited to see what they do! Here are just a few highlights of their amazing 2024:
20 Under 40 program – their 4th year running this – they nearly doubled their revenue and brought on two additional sponsors who recognized the increasing value.
Their Best of the Pines revenue increased 14% YOY without any change in pricing.
The Sidelines Star of the Week high school athlete photo contest gained a new sponsor in its second year and they added social media-friendly baseball card-style templates that resulted in a huge increase in engagement and helped to increase their weekly Sports email opt-ins 17% YOY.
Overall, revenue was up 30% from 2023!! That’s $100k — which is HUGE for a community newspaper with 8,000 print subscribers! Overall, they have collected nearly 30,000 subscribers who have opted in to receive their contest emails… in a market of 100,000 people. Through their promotions and Second Street, they’re reaching 30% of our entire market.
AND their promotions initiatives have grown so much that they had to hire a new staff member to help keep up with everything!
- My Horry News – Conway, SC
- WETM-TV – Elmira, New York
- NRG – Wausau – Wausau, WI
- Gulf Coast Media – Foley, AL
Best Mid-Size Market Program
Winner: Federated – Fort Wayne – Fort Wayne, IN
2024 wasn’t just another year of the same old same. Running over 300 promotions, they saw growth across the board with over 28K new users and 57K new opt-ins. 2024 was a big year, but it didn’t stop there. They generated $875K in revenue associated with contesting and promotions!
- NRG – Lincoln – Lincoln, NE
- Green Bay Press Gazette – Green Bay, WI
- KOLR-TV – Springfield, MO
- Times Union – Albany, NY
- KVOA-TV – Tucson, AZ
Best Large Market Program
Winner: The Columbus Dispatch – Columbus, OH
The Columbus Dispatch team focused on key categories they knew would drive revenue in their region: sports, home improvement, and retail. Their sales team curated their strategy with the mindset around promotion success – including promotions in 75%+ of pitches. With this dedication to promotions, they saw 75 total promotions sales from entertainment, home and improvement and retail categories, $469K in Community Choice revenue, $35K in sports initiatives like Athlete of the Week, for a total of $1,000,000 in revenue for 2024!
- KING-TV – Seattle, WA
- MySA – San Antonio, TX
- KTVI-TV – St. Louis, MO
- KMPH-TV – Fresno, CA
- St. Louis Magazine – St. Louis, MO
Groupwide Strategy
Winner: Gannett
Let’s start with the totals that blew us away – the team at Gannett was able to pull in $31MM in revenue for 2024 – that’s a 21% total YOY revenue increase!
And how did they do this, you ask? The promotions team turned internal sales leaders who weren’t believers in promotions into FANS – and that was accomplished by driving RESULTS for their advertisers and sharing those results month after month. They have revenue from Local, Regional and National Sales Channels, and they are constantly evolving their sales structure, strategy, sales packages, and how they report results to their advertisers.
Their revenue grew each quarter in 2024 in their Custom Lead Generation vertical. They dramatically increased sales of Recurring Revenue promotions including almost $2MM in athlete of the week promotions – and already renewed $1.5MM for 2025.
They produce 146 Best Of ballots a year, have a database over 3M active subscribers to their promotions audience, and generate sales from multiple channels including national, sports, local. In total, their digital marketing solutions agency and ran over 1,100 promotions last year.
Gannett continues to innovate, improve, and smash their goals, and we love seeing their growth every year!
- Federated Media
- Adams Publishing Group
- NRG Media
- Nexstar Media Group, Inc.
- Shaw Media
- Carpenter Media Group
Breakout Partner of the Year
Winner: My Horry News
My Horry News is a locally owned and operated media company servicing the Grand Strand for over 40 years. They have five weekly community publications and over 30 special sections they publish each year.
Being a media company allows them to be involved and in front of the community, but running campaigns allows them AND heir clients to be involved as well. Their team told us that it’s contests specifically that allow them as a media company to bridge the gap between advertisers and the community.
To pu things into perspective, in 2018, they ran a total of 9 contests. In 2024, they ran a staggering 77 contests. And guess who lead the charge on this? Bessie Bosco! She is the digital marketing manager and she is a one-woman digital team that oversees their entrie promotion program. And she helped secure a whopping $114,000 in revenue for 2024.
Second Street Promotions Hall of Fame
- Sara Tieman – Nexstar
- Cathie Giglio – Gannett
- Ryan Williams – Federated Media
- Bessie Bosco – My Horry News
- Mike Martoccia – Adams Publishing Group
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Julie is the Senior Customer Success Manager at Second Street and a former client in local media. Her best advice for driving the most success with your revenue and audience engagement strategy is to include promotions in every business initiative.