• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, November 8, 2004

Has anyone else noticed that the iPod is now the gift of choice and the biggest incentive on the Internet?

I was trying to come up with a topic this week and while surfing around and reading what other people were up to, when I came across three different campaigns that offered up a free iPod for consumer participation in less than 15 minutes.

More iPods are given away at conferences and seminars than candy is given away at Halloween. Whatever happened to the good old days when my participation was worth cold hard cash (just kidding, but for those of you who remember the iMedia Summit where a publisher gave away $1,000 cash in the morning media session, please insert laugh-track and chuckles here).

It got me to thinking of when and where it's necessary to give away something of value to incent a user to interact with a marketing message? Of course, I see the value in contests and sweepstakes, but I always felt that the best contests and sweepstakes were ones where the prizes were somehow related to the brand and the messaging.

If everyone is giving away iPods, then how do you differentiate yourself from the competition? How do you even get your category to stand out?

In this era of clutter and AADD (advertising attention deficit disorder), do we always have to resort to a bribe to get our advertising noticed? Would David Ogilvy have approved of iPod giveaways for all of his clients? Maybe, but probably not.

I think in some cases we use contests and sweepstakes as a crutch to cover up the lack of creativity in developing a marketing message. A well thought out campaign will always be more effective than a bribe, and more memorable too. A brand lives on as a result of ingenious thinking, not as a result of payola or incentivized responses.

Earlier this week I heard a great speech by Scott Bedbury. One of the points he made was that advertising is being replaced by "communication." It's not a new idea, but it's a strong one. Advertising is becoming interactive.

It's about having a dialogue with your customers. In a dialogue, or in a conversation, you have a give and take. You give some information and you take some information. You add value and you receive valuable feedback from your customers that allows you to tailor your products and services to their needs.

If I have to give you a free iPod just to get you listen to my part of the conversation, then it's just possible that I'm not saying anything of true value. It's possible that my communication is rather one-sided and I need to do a better job of listening as well, in order to provide more value to you.

If you think of it this way, then a contest or a sweepstakes is definitely a cop-out. If you rely on a contest as a means of conveying a message, then you are no better than the timeshare hustlers that ambush you when you get off the plane in Cabo.

When you are looking to incorporate a contest or sweepstakes, try to make it a secondary message to that of the brand itself. In the long run, the brand is what is going to keep them coming back. The contest or sweepstakes is a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

Now get back to work, I am not really giving away an iPod here.