I certainly didn’t mean to offend, and hopefully I didn’t, since you are clearly not a “professional” who makes hay breaking captchas, creating dummy email addresses or finding other ways to add illicit votes.

Your best point, which is also your #1 tip is to read the rules. This is also my first piece of advice to clients who wish to run a UGC contest. Many contest hosts want to maximize the number of votes as they perceive this as a key performance indicator. I don’t agree (we’ll leave KPIs for a future post), but it is absolutely critical that the rules state that the winner IS NOT chosen by public votes exclusively. I discuss this point in some more detail in an earlier post.

My main point is that the target audience for a brand contest is the target audience for their product, and professional (or hobbiest) contestors are not that.

I totally agree with your assessment of the sauce contest. It doesn’t use any of my handy tips: cash prize, no clear and easy call-to-action, too much work, asks you to be a tomato sauce pitchman, no Facebook Connect, etc, etc… These types of campaigns can be more trouble than they’re worth.

I also see that it is using YouTube to host the video and commenting. This also has its problems, as discussed by Steve Hulford on the Filemobile blog.

I am a promotional marketing consultant (20+ years) and a contestor (8+ years). I do not make my living entering contests and therefore do not consider myself a professional. It’s my hobby. No different than collecting coins or stamps, knitting or quilting, or baking and gardening. It is an activity I enjoy that I spend time on. People view it differently because there may be a monetary reward at some point. I earn my money consulting, writing, and teaching.

Yes, there are “tricks” to entering, but not what you think. My #1 tip/trick to entering is to read the rules. You must follow them to a T or you will be disqualified. If the rules state one entry per person, that’s all I would enter. Ballot stuffing would only get me disqualified. I want to win, not cheat. True contestors don’t like the cheaters either as they ruin the hobby for everyone; the entrants, the sponsors, etc… (It is also the #1 tip I give my clients. Make sure your rules are air tight to prevent the cheaters.)

Also, I would love your opinion as to why this UGC contest is failing so miserably. http://trythesauce.ca/videos.html They are giving away $5000. There are only 30 entries. WOW! Talk about fantastic odds!

The entries are low because people have to get creative, make a video, and then it is voted up AND judged. Too hard. Yes, the reason the Canadian Living UGC contest was so successful was millions of people have pets and photos are easy to upload.

You also have to look at the reason a company is running a contest in the first place. If it is to engage their most loyal and valuable customers, by all means, make a “tough” UGC contest. If their objective is to build a prospect database quickly and easily, then have a one entry per person contest with a short questionnaire. If their objective is to get top-of-mind awareness then they should have a daily entry promotion so each person entering sees the brand every day. To drive the brand even further, add a game component to keep the entrant engaged.

So, before a company decides to run a UGC contest, they first need to determine their objective and build their promotion upon that, whatever the style may be.