SMS Campaign Watch – Macleans Text to win Competition

This is the latest in our blog series, taking a critical look at consumer text response campaigns. The idea is to mark them on how they perform on a series of key criteria. This text to win competition is from toothpaste legend, Macleans.

Creative Impact  Score 8.0 /10

“Win a £5000 makeover”
Visually, I think Maclean’s have done a really good job in creating an attention grabbing, high impact campaign. You’re certainly not going to buy the toothpaste and miss the fact that there is some sort of promotion going on here.
The red flash stands out well from the surrounding familiar blue packaging. The large ‘WIN’ text leaves you instantly in no doubt that there might be something for nothing up for grabs.
On further investigation though, I was left a little confused. I wasn’t exactly sure what the ‘makeover’ entailed and how Dancing on Ice were involved. It also struck me that this campaign was targeted entirely at the female population. I’m sure this must have been a deliberate tactic. Maybe they’ve found out that men simply don’t buy toothpaste. (This raises all sorts of dental hygiene based issues.)
Further details on what you can win are outlined pretty clearly on a large red panel. A good touch was having 12 lesser prizes, giving entrants more chances to win.
A visually strong text to win competition with clear information on what can be won.

Entry Instructions  Score 4.5/10

Instructions on how to enter this text to win competition are certainly clear but incredibly long-winded. You are required to identify your ‘b code’ which can be found on the end flap of the packaging. The insistence on capturing consumer names seems an unnecessary step. The more information you ask someone to give the less likely they are to bother. Maclean’s can’t really do anything useful with this information. If they were capturing e-mail addresses then this would make some sense but I can’t see how name information will be beneficial.

Ease of Entry  Score 7.0/ 10 

Once I had identified my ‘b code’, entering the text to win competition was pretty straightforward. The code was only seven characters long so it was pretty quick to enter.
One minor criticism would be that you had to start your text with the letters DOI which my phone wanted to change to DPI.

What happened Next?  Score 8.0/10

A few seconds after sending my text, came the following….
“Thanks for entering. We pick winners weekly until 26/3/12 & on 7/5/12 we’ll let you know if you’ve won. To stop receiving our SMS’s txt MACSTOP to 62277”
This is a solid response letting me know when the draw is taking place and informing me that I’ll be told if I’ve won or not. Most reassuring. It’s also good to see that they are including an opt out, so that I can remove myself from their list should I wish.
It would have been good to have been given some sort of further call to action; a link to their website or Facebook page perhaps.

Terms and Conditions  Score 9.0/10

These are pretty comprehensive and take-up one third of one of the pack panels. They don’t interfere with any other part of the competition though and printed against a white background are perfectly legible.

Overall Score 36.5/50  73%

A solid text to win competition here, although not perhaps the most imaginative concept. Long entry instructions are likely to supress response and increase error rate.

(Pack photography by Emily Cazalet)