• by Aaron Baar , November 2, 2010

Sara Lee's State Fair Brand of Corn Dogs recently gave away the grand prize in its 10-month promotional sweepstakes: a $500,000 "Dream Home" in Tennessee (where the winner resides). The company developed the promotion with Launch Creative Marketing as an effort to increase brand awareness and frequency at a time when competitors were cutting prices in the category.

"Our issue was that competitors were resorting to aggressive pricing," Jim Gelder, vice president of creative at Launch, tells Marketing Daily. "Our objective was to increase household penetration and market share. We knew in this economy [giving away a house] resonated really well with the public."

The agency determined the prize and the promotion through consumer research that showed moms (the brand's primary purchaser) dreamed about home ownership, Gelder says. "We tested a few concepts with consumers," he says. "The 'Dream Home' won overwhelmingly. It was something moms were going to be interested in partaking in."

The nine-month promotion was an interactive online game that challenged consumers to collect the six virtual rooms of a "Dream Home" microsite via promotional codes on product packaging. In addition to the grand prize, the contest included more than 10,000 instant-win prizes such as HDTVs, appliances, grills and other items.

The agency hyped the contest through on-package messaging, free-standing newspaper inserts and a mobile promotional overlay, which encouraged consumers to receive contest updates via text message as well as access to a mobile version of the game site.

Through the promotion, the microsite received more than 250,000 unique registrations and 1.65 million game plays while increasing the brand's consumer e-mail database by 400%, Gelder says.