Category: Contests

Good Criteria for Judging a Contest

Fae Savignano, Senior Vice President and expert on all things promotional, weighs in on what good criteria are for judging a contest in her blog post for the month. As you are all probably aware, a contest is a game of skill; whereby entrants are judged on their ability to successfully perform skill-type activities. For example, writing an essay, preparing a recipe, answering trivia questions or solving puzzles would all

May 5, 2025 2 Comments

What is Promotional Marketing?

Promotion marketing is any message that includes an incentive to persuade the target audience to take immediate action, thereby driving some form of brand interaction that leads to a current or future purchase. Promotion is different from advertising and other forms of marketing in that the goal is to drive immediate behavioral change. Promotional marketing is an often-misused tool when placed into inexperienced hands. You must ensure that any

May 4, 2025 2 Comments

Criteria for Judging a Photo Contest

Fae Savignano, Marden-Kane SVP, follows up on her “Good Criteria for Judging a Contest” blog with this closer look at photo contest criteria. I would like to expand the list of suggested Contest Judging Criteria as it applies specifically to Photo Contests to include updated entry methods, social media trends and promotional knowledge acquired in the past 2 years. Previously suggested Judging Criteria for a Photo Contest: Adherence/Appropriateness to Theme

May 3, 2025 5 Comments

The Difference Between Sweepstakes and Contests

Katie Blaney, one of Marden-Kane’s Account Supervisors, explains the difference between sweepstakes and contests. If your company wants more information on either, give us a call at 516-365-3999. The words “promotion,” “sweepstakes,” “contest” and “giveaways” are sometimes used interchangeably. However, there are a few very distinct differences between sweepstakes and contests. To start, the word “promotion” can be used to describe many different marketing tactics including Sweepstakes, Contests, Instant

May 2, 2025 3 Comments

The Facts About Prizes Revealed

Fae Savignano, SVP, contributed this post about prizes. Research shows that more than half of all adults in the U.S. enter at least one sweepstakes every year, and this amount increases exponentially. Promoting Sweepstakes and Contests are an excellent way to engage and retain your customers and a properly structured prize offering will definitely enhance your endeavor. Let’s face it, the chance of winning an expensive and alluring prize

April 26, 2025 No Comments

5 Ways to Run a Flawless Beauty Pageant

Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, making any kind of beauty pageant subjective. It then follows that if you are having a beauty pageant, you must look at it as a contest, and in most parts of the world that means you will also need to have Official Rules for your contest, and predetermined criteria within those rules. If you want to run a beauty pageant here are

May 6, 2021 No Comments

March Madness: How to Run a Bracket Challenge

March means the return of flowers, longer hours of daylight, St Patrick’s Day – and March Madness. The annual bracket challenge basketball tournament is known to basketball fans and non-fans, on TVs in bars and in homes across the country, where people talk about their picks to win it all. A bracket challenge like the March Madness tournament can be a fantastic promotion vehicle for your business, and you can

March 11, 2021 No Comments

Cooking Contest Best Practices

A cooking contest is a great way to engage your customers and help people think of creative ways to use your brand’s products, be it the food or kitchen products. Keep It Simple As with any contest, the key to a successful cooking contest is to keep the ask simple and the messaging clear. An open-ended call for entries could create issues if you end up having to judge a

September 23, 2020 No Comments

From the MK Promotion Archives: Hunt’s Great Recipe Hunt

Hunt’s Great Recipe Hunt The Challenge In 1989 Beatrice/Hunt-Wesson, Inc. wanted to encourage the use of Hunt’s products in new recipes. The Solution Marden-Kane administered and supervised the “Great Recipe Hunt” recipe contest, coordinating all details for a final “cook-off” event held in four major U.S. Cities. MK scouted hotel locations, oversaw the ordering, procurement and set-up for each cook-off location. We rented generators, miles of electrical cords, stoves, cookware,

June 3, 2020 No Comments

11 Small Business Social Promotion Ideas for the Shutdown

Small businesses, especially those considered non-essential right now, have to come up with creative ideas to retain loyal customers and ensure that they will have a business to reopen. For most small business this is definitely not “business as usual,” but rather, “business unusual” that keeps you in the black. For each of these small business social promotion ideas, please remember that each social platform has promotion guidelines that

April 15, 2020 No Comments