In the ‘old days' it was the cost of a stamp or free if you dropped it in the box, now it's R10 or R7.50 or if it's a cheap one R2 to enter and WORSE, it could cost up to R10 to send an opt out message! What is that about? The odds of winning haven't changed from traditional promotions but the cost has. You can just hear the agency, “I know, let's get the customer to pay for the competition prizes! ...plus we'll make a fortune on top of that!"
The fact is whether it's a premium rated SMS or even the cheaper USSD (which by the way is also not free), it's still a cost to entry.
Now my understanding of the Lotteries Act is: To comply with the act you must get rid of one of the following, Subscription, Chance or Prize. Ok so we're not going to get rid of the prize as that is the incentive. So it's got to be Chance or Subscription. If not it's an illegal lottery.
At this point someone at the agency is going to have a Eureka moment and say, “Let's ask a question, that makes it legal because it's skill and judgement and we can charge a fortune for the SMS or 20 cents for 20 seconds if we use USSD.” What's the question? “What colour is the pack?” Now unless you are colour blind I think most people have got a good chance of getting this one and if you are colour blind you can always ask a friend. But is this skill or judgement? Yeah, right!
So you don't want to go the skill and judgement route. OK, so we have to get rid of subscription, but how?
Subscription is linked to what it costs the customer to enter the promotion. Getting rid of this is difficult as buying the product is subscription and then there is the SMS or USSD cost, so the only way to get round that is to get rid of the mobile charge and “CLEARLY” state that “No Purchase is Necessary”. This may seem like defeating the purpose of having a promotion but from my 20 years experience in below-the-line and in reality the percentage of those who enter promotions without making a purchase is marginal, less than 1%. Yes there are professional compers but they die off and I know most brand managers hope it's a slow painful demise.
OK, to recap: can't avoid the prize, can't avoid No Purchase Necessary, so how do people enter if we can't charge for SMS or USSD and we want them to do it in a way that gives us data and ease of entry? Answer: Bluetooth.
How does this work? Well, instead of entry slips and the drop box we use a low range Bluetooth transmitter, together with a digital screen and a 2D barcode scanner with keypad and printer combined in a single unit and known as a Brandpoint Kiosk™. This allows the customer to receive FREE rich media content that includes a 2D barcode sent to their mobile phone via Bluetooth. The barcode is scanned at the Brandpoint Kiosk™ and the customer enters their mobile number using the keypad, a voucher is then printed that can have one of many communication messages like “Congratulations, you've won an instant prize or 15 cents off your purchase, etc”. At the same time as receiving the voucher an instant SMS is sent to the mobile phone number that was keyed into the Brandpoint Kiosk™, this informs the customer that they have been entered into the promotion to win the hook prize plus offering a click through link to the brand Mobisite if they have one. And the added value on top of all this is that they will have your brand on their phone screen and even a discount voucher to encourage the purchase. Now that is what is known as a WIN, WIN, WIN situation.
Is there a downside? Well, maybe, but then again it depends what your objectives are.
It's true that via Bluetooth the customer needs to be close to the product so it's location specific, but the objective of the brand is to sell so it makes sense. SMS promotions in print are not generally about instant sales and more about data collection which in many instances is a waste of time as the data goes stone cold before anyone decides it may be a good idea to use it.