Using 'N Sync as the hook in a sweepstakes for Polaroid's i-ZONE camera had the desired effect: attracting teens, mostly female, a key target for the camera.
Polaroid promoted the sweepstakes nationally through nearly 1.7 million e-mails along with banner and pop-up ads from July through September. One batch of e-mails went to 700,000 female teens taken from a database of MusicVision, a music-marketing firm that sponsored the promotion. Another set of e-mails went to nearly 1 million registered recipients of 'N Sync's monthly online newsletter. The August and September newsletters also promoted the sweepstakes.
The prize was a chance to direct a photo shoot with the band. In the three months of the campaign, 48,973 people registered.
Kevin Chernett, executive vice president of MusicVision, New York, declined to break down response rates for the e-mail campaigns or how many people opted in to receive future contact from Polaroid, but said the numbers greatly exceeded Polaroid's expectations.
To win, recipients had to participate in a scavenger hunt and find the letters I-Z-O-N-E on more than 10 music Web sites including nsync.com and mtv.com.
“The goal of the campaign was to get teens to interact with the brand for an extended period of time,” Chernett said.
After recipients clicked on a link within the e-mail or newsletter, they were taken to a microsite called izonefantasy.com that listed the music sites where the letters could be found. They also could forward sweepstakes information to a friend, and Chernett said 23 percent did so.
Of the nearly 49,000 who signed up, 27 percent completed the game. Chernett said frequent follow-up e-mails to all registrants helped achieve that high number of completions.
“From the time you registered for the sweepstakes, an e-mail was sent out every 10 days reminding you to finish the game and continue playing,” he said. “Those e-mails went out until you either finished the game or the sweepstakes ended.”
The winner was announced three weeks ago.
“This was a concentrated effort on extending the i-ZONE brand within this demographic,” he said. “It was purely a branding campaign for the i-ZONE camera.”
