Submit a video of yourself, friends/family eating pizza and win $3,000TT!!
That’s the basis of a new Facebook campaign by Mario’s Pizza. Mario’s gives away $3,000 but gains a variety of videos created by regular customers, who promote the brand.
There’s a couple of marketing principles at work here – the principle of social proof which dictates that the more people who are doing it, the more valuable and acceptable the product must be.
There’s a peer-to-peer aspect at work. These videos aren’t of actors. They’re regular Joe Schmoes like you and me.
There’s an amplification factor, too, where for every video uploaded, friends of the uploader are notified through the Facebook stream. The video’s uploader must also go a step further, they must promote their own video by getting friends to ‘like’ it.
Announcement & Promotion
The contest first appeared on Friday 20 November. Here’s a sampling of status updates announcing the promotion.
- Post a home video of you or your friends/family eating a Mario’s Family Pizza and Win $3,000 TT dollars. The Rules are simple, please see the Discussion Board under the topic “Home Video”. Have Fun. (20 Nov 09, 13 responses)
- Win $3,000 TTD. Want to know how? (20 Nov 09, 21 responses)
- Who wants an extra $3000 TT for christmas shopping, see the home video topic in the discussions tab for more details. (22 Nov 09, 19 responses)
- It seems as if no one wants to win and easy $3,000. (24 Nov 09, 23 responses)
Contest Rules
The rules for submission are pretty standard. The product must be highly visible and the customers must give a testimonial. The Facebook audience chooses the winner, much like the rules for America’s Best Dance Crew or Dancing with the Stars, where the fans decide the outcome.
The Rules are simple, the Mario’s Pizza must be visible along with the Mario’s Box with logo. The persons in the video must be eating the pizza and they must say why they like Mario’s Pizza, and why it is the number one pizza in Trinidad.
Entries must be submitted by Nov 30th 2009. The winner will be the person who complies with the above rules and whose video is most “LIKED”. Therefore you need to get all your facebook friends to like your video.
Note that if your video is choosen to be the Winner, Mario’s will have the right to repost on its Facebook Fan Page and website for advertising purposes.
Number of Videos submitted
1.
Yes, just 1 video uploaded as of Wednesday 3rd Dec. 13 days after the first mention of the contest. 3 days after the contest is to have ended.
However, in this 4-minute video the guys are really hamming it up.
Marios! Marioooossss! Marios is the bes’ tastin’ pizza! Not just de bes,’ is’ numbah 1! Numbah 1 in de woooorl’! It so good ah hadda take 2 slices!!
Is de greates’ pizza I have ever tasted in my life. I tink I goin’ to take anodder slice.
With accompanied groans and sighs of contentment and lots of Ahh Hahs and Um Hmps These guys are so good they deserve Oscars. They rival the Diana Power Mints cast in terms of enthusiasm.
Overall Assessment
Kudos to the Mario’s Pizzeria team on a fantastic idea lifted from more international brands.
Where Mario’s fell down is in the shortness of the contest – just 10 days – and low promotion. As far as I could tell, there was no promotion in the press or on broadcast media. Promotion on Facebook seemed limited to status updates – I didn’t see a Facebook ad.
One could argue that the contest was targeted only at Facebook fans. In that case, Mario’s could have utilised the option to send an update or a more direct Facebook message to each fan. Facebook ads, too, can be targeted to only fans and friends of fans.
1 out of 25,841 fans submitted a video to this promising contest. Maybe Trinis just aren’t ready for this kind of advertising? What do you think?
