Christmas contests: 5 original ideas to stand out

Christmas is a strategic period for brands, as it accounts for a significant share of their revenue. It offers a great opportunity to inspire prospects and customers by sharing relevant gift ideas they will want to give to their loved ones or treat themselves to.

Because competition is especially fierce during the holiday season, planning your Christmas marketing campaign in advance is essential. Some companies start weeks in advance, gathering leads and customer data during key marketing moments leading up to Christmas, such as Black Friday or Halloween.

Yet the challenge also lies in standing out to capture the attention of consumers who are heavily solicited during this period. On any given day, they can be exposed to nearly 1,200 advertisements. To stand out, brands can rely on creative formats, often called scroll stoppers because they encourage users to stop scrolling.

In this article, we will look at the best ideas for Christmas contests. These playful activations are ideal for engaging your audience, multiplying touchpoints throughout the holiday season, and driving more sales.

Here are 5 Christmas marketing game ideas, along with inspiring examples and best practices to make your campaign a success.

1. An Advent calendar to engage your audience

The Advent calendar is a great classic for engaging your audience during the holiday season. This interactive format creates a daily touchpoint for your prospects and customers. Every day, they can open a new window to discover a new Christmas contest, a surprise gift, exclusive content, and more.

For companies, this activation can serve several purposes:

• Engage existing customers and new prospects during a key strategic marketing moment;
• Collect customer data and opt-ins for upcoming commercial campaigns;
• Present their Christmas range in a playful and interactive way.
• Drive traffic to your online store by directing participants to your page and generate more sales.

Evoluderm, for example, chose the Advent calendar to drive more traffic to its online store. With each window, participants could unlock a mini game and try to win a product directly available on the brand’s website.

Monnaie de Paris launched its own Advent calendar to engage its audience through each window, generating more than 37,000 participants.

2. A photo contest to generate UGC

Brands can also engage their community and boost conversion rates by running a Christmas photo contest. The concept is simple: audiences are invited to create and share original photos centered around the brand’s world. For example, they can photograph their best Christmas outfit or their festive tree decorations.

Then, the best photos will be selected for a random draw or directly rewarded with an attractive prize, such as a surprise gift bag or a voucher to use on the brand’s website or in-store.

The goal for the brand is to engage customers and reward them with exclusive prizes, which can also trigger purchases through discount coupons, for example.

Photo contests are also an ideal way to generate user generated content, which is content created and shared directly by customers. Users especially value this type of content, viewing it as more authentic than brand messaging. It serves as an extremely powerful marketing tool to boost brand awareness and drive new conversions.

3. A 100% winning scratch card game

The Christmas season is all about sharing and generosity. Brands can play Santa Claus by giving their audience the opportunity to take part in a Christmas contest where everyone wins.

For example, this could be a Wheel of fortune. To maximize its impact, the brand can share it across all its channels, including ad campaigns, social media, website, and mobile app. Participants are guaranteed to win a prize, which has a direct positive impact on the campaign’s engagement rate.

As a reward, the brand can offer discount vouchers or shopping coupons. Depending on its commercial goals, the brand can set strategic conditions of use. For example, in a drive to store campaign designed to increase foot traffic to physical stores, coupons can be redeemable exclusively in store.

4. An interactive quiz to boost brand awareness

Christmas marketing campaigns can also be an opportunity for brands to strengthen their brand identity and increase brand awareness among a broad audience. To introduce their brand world and products, they can share an interactive Quiz, for instance. This playful format is particularly effective for engaging an affinity audience. By asking targeted questions, the company can help them become more familiar with its history, values, and products.

Once the Quiz is complete, participants can, for example, enter a prize draw to win one of the products featured during the experience. To boost reach on social media, the company can also let users share their score on their own profiles.

5. A Gifts Rain to hand out prizes

Running a Christmas contest can also aim to reward your most loyal customers. Brands can opt for a post-purchase marketing game or an exclusive activation for loyalty program members.

A Gifts Rain, for example, is an ideal activation to boost customer retention. Players will be invited to catch falling items related to the brand’s universe to win prizes. With customer retention in mind, this game can be introduced at the end of the checkout process once an order is confirmed, or through a targeted email campaign for loyalty card members.

Christmas contests are an excellent way to stand out during the holiday season. Choose the gamification mechanics that best align with your strategic goals and your target audience’s expectations. You can easily customize it through Social Shaker and share it via a simple link across all your marketing channels!