In our article, Social Media: Beneficial All Year Round, we noted that throughout the year, there are events that inspire promotions. Obvious events that the general public gets excited about are holidays like Christmas and New Year’s Day. Even winter turning into spring, or a major sporting events like the Olympics are used as tie-ins for product discounts.
So why not Batman?
Kaspersky is promoting their famous security software with product discounts and a free-entry sweepstakes. They wisely tied these promotions to one of the most anticipated movies this year, The Dark Knight Rises. The premise is that you, the visitor, help Batman protect Gotham city against a computer virus unleashed by the villain Bane. Your help is then rewarded with awesome prizes.
The sweepstakes is a marketing tactic designed to increase the perception of the worth of a product. The discounts reduce the cost of a product. The theory is that increasing your product’s value and simultaneously lowering its cost will increase brand awareness and drive revenue.
But are they doing it successfully? Without a glimpse into their analytics it is impossible to say with any certainty, but we’re going to judge this promotion using the guidelines we found in this infographic from Wishpond titled, Introducing Social Sweepstakes.
Wishpond offers five rules for a successful sweepstakes:
- Offer a big targeted prize
- Let everyone know
- Keep letting everyone know about it
- Follow up with winners and non-winners
- Measure and optimize results
Big, Targeted Prize
Kaspersky got the “Big” part right. The sweepstakes offers a grand prize that includes a free, extravagant trip to New York City and dozens of smaller prizes like televisions, tablets, PlayStations and gift cards. They got the “Targeted” right as well. Even though I imagine most of those entering the raffle do so for the trip to New York and are uninterested in purchasing the product, since most of the prizes will be one year subscriptions for the Kaspersky product, the company ensures a new base of loyal customers or the continued loyalty of existing customers.
Let Everyone Know & Continue to Promote Throughout
The Wishpond infographic suggests that companies promote through their social channels and create Facebook ads. For this, Kaspersky earns a partial win. If you enter the sweepstakes, you are immediately prompted to promote on Twitter and Facebook with special logos. You also get the chance to act like an affiliate marketer. You receive special social media links for Twitter and Facebook and if your friends and followers sign up through these links, you get extra chances to win the prizes.
I especially liked that the Facebook promotion did not require me to allow an app to access my account in order to participate. Unfortunately, I never saw ads for this promotion during my exhaustive research. However, with a dedicated Facebook page, it’s clear that Kaspersky wants to convert their Facebook fans.
Tying the promotion to Batman and promoting through Twitter gets otherwise unaffiliated parties involved. Warner Brothers showcased the promotion to their 350k+ followers, as did other Batman focused Twitter Accounts like @batmannewscom.
I also want to acknowledge that the retargeting campaign is in full effect. Wherever I go on the web now, this promotion follows me. Here’s a screen shot of when I was browsing Forbes.com.
Obviously, this company is trying to leverage their social networks. Which is why I thought it was peculiar that Kaspersky neglected their Google+ channel. Well, not entirely. I did find the product promoted on the Kaspersky Lab Espana Google + page. But why not promote in what is an otherwise active channel for Kaspersky?
Incredibly, their email channel has been a big fail so far. Kaspersky failed to send a confirmation email when I signed up, despite opting in to “Yes, I would like to receive The People of Gotham City promotion updates, including winner lists, via email.
Follow Up With Winners And Non-Winner & Measure And Optimize Results
There has already been one drawing and I haven’t seen Kaspersky promote the winners at all. (They certainly didn’t send anything to me, the non-winner.) And as I said at the top of the post, without insight into the analytics of the promotion, it’s impossible to say how the measuring and optimization affects the promotion.
Suffice to say, this is a well planned campaign. Big, targeted prizes, combined with product discounts and tied to a popular event are sure to drive engagement and conversions. How much engagement and how many conversions? Well that sounds like a job for the “World’s Greatest Detective.”
Interesting article – one element that would also be interesting to know in connection with assessing the success of this campaign would be the royalties Kaspersky has to pay to the respective right holders in order use the Batman IP for this campaign, which are likely to be substantial
Hi Oliver. Thanks for the comment. I know that in the music industry songwriters and performers are paid sales royalties, mechanical royalties, performance royalties, sync fees, etc., but what kind of royalties do you think Warner Bros. is earning here? And what about the fact that Warner Bros. is benefiting from Kaspersky’s advertising its movie? Doesn’t Kaspersky deserve compensation here? What are your thoughts?
Great read Elan and I wonder on, “Suffice to say, this is a well planned campaign.” yet was it profitable?
~Clint
@cazoomi
Thanks Clint.
The Kaspersky campaign is still running and their retargeting ads are still following me while I surf the web.
The truth is, following the Aurora tragedy, my feelings about the ads went from a giddy excitement to slight discomfort and I wonder if others had similar reactions that affected their perception of the ad.
Thanks Elan and as life changes so must business. In this case instantly is the case so I wonder if it was pulled.
Even my daughter didn’t want to see the movie after the news. When I said that is no reason, she said, “but it is so dark in there..” I said let’s go to the beach then:)
~Clint
@cazoomi