Case Study Highlights
- Bracket earned $15,000 revenue for station
- Highest number of users in 3 years, a 53% increase in users from last year
- Quizzes taken more than 2,500 times
- Sweepstakes received more than 2,500 entries
*Editor’s Note: This promotion was a Finalist for a 2015 Second Street Award.
The Idea
At WPSD-TV, we have been running our 64 team March Mania college basketball bracket since 2010, and it’s always been a big success. This year we had a goal to increase our number of users and to target a new advertiser.
The Execution
Each year we’ve secured a different sponsor for March Mania. This year we sold the contest to one title sponsor, an auto dealership with two locations – Taylor Automotive and Union City Ford. Our advertiser had recently created a new website and was looking for a powerful way to target online users and build awareness about their new webpage. Our bracket campaign made a lot of sense to accomplish their goal of branding as the network would be sharing the business name and website address frequently to a wide audience.
The Bracket
While the bracket itself ran for the three-week duration of the college basketball tournament, our planning stages started much earlier. This year our basketball promotions team incorporated ten different television representatives, including our emerging media department.
We began our intense promoting blitz after the beginning of the new year. There were many layers in the sponsorship package for Taylor Automotive. The auto dealer received exclusive naming rights to the bracket. Plus, their location names were included on all of our design and promotional materials.
The Sweepstakes
Our advertisers had a couple additional goals – to grow their Facebook Likes, build their email database, and collect data to turn into actionable leads. Along with the bracket, we created the Win Mad Money sweepstakes that operated on the auto dealer’s Facebook Page during the tournament. The prize was a $500 Visa Gift Card.
Taylor Automotive was hoping to grow the service side of their business, so we included 3 survey questions about the user’s automotive spending habits. The data collected from these questions can be directly used for the advertiser’s marketing campaigns in the future. In addition, every entrant received a bounceback coupon offering a 10% discount on vehicle services at either Taylor Automotive location.
The Quiz Bundle
Another way we helped reach Taylor Automotive’s goals of social media growth and product awareness was through a quiz bundle we developed for the business. The advertiser loved the social shareability of online quizzes, so we chose to make the “Which UK Player Are You?” Diehard UK basketball fans loved to take the quiz, see who which player they were most like, and to challenge their friends and family to do the same.
We also ran another personality quiz that was more advertiser specific, “What Type of Car Should You Drive?” The goal of this quiz was to showcase the business’ own products to spark awareness about their vehicle selection at their dealerships. The quizzes were shared on the advertiser sites, and our WPSD Facebook Page shared the links to our viewers as well.
The Package
Our advertisers love promotions packages because they really increase the value to the client. Packaging a combination of promotions together makes the advertiser feel like they get a lot for their money, and they can also promote specific messages about their products.
Here’s a glimpse into our entire promotional package for March Mania:
Our advertiser was able to use co-op dollars from Chrysler and Ford to advertise for the March Mania bracket itself. We ran three different targeted banner ad campaigns and also created 3 different 15 second pre-roll ads that ran before content on our WPSD website.
These online ads were very valuable to the advertiser as we ha ve a higher than average click-through rate compared to industry standards – our video pre-roll alone averages a 6% CTR!
To gain even more awareness, the auto dealer made sure to share all of WPSD’s posts about the bracket on their own Facebook Pages.
When it came to the bracket prizes, users were already entered into the national prize – $1 million for a perfect bracket – but we’ve learned that users really love local prizes as well. Taylor Automotive put up a $250 Visa Gift Card for the local overall winner. For each round, the advertiser also offered $25 gift certificates for a vehicle service at either Taylor Automotive location.
The Results
Our March Mania basketball bracket campaign was incredibly successful.
- $15,000 in revenue for WPSD-TV
- More than 1,100 bracket users – our highest numbers in three years
- Win Mad Money sweepstakes received more than 2,500 entries
- 252 New Facebook Likes for the sponsor
- Sweepstakes earned a 67% opt-in rate
- Two quizzes were taken more than 2,500 times
WPSD-TV’s March Mania was a finalist for Best Promotions Campaign at the 2015 Second Street Awards.
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Karie is the Digital Sales Director at Bristol Broadcasting. Prior to this, she worked as the Emerging Media Account Executive at WPSD-TV in Paducah, Kentucky. She spoke at the 2015 Second Street Summit about selling promotions that generate results for advertisers.