Dive Brief:

• Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Kleenex tissues and Scott toilet paper, launched a text-based sweepstakes to promote its Huggies brand of diapers in Meijer stores, a regional chain with 224 supermarkets. HelloWorld, a Detroit-based digital marketing agency, is managing the campaign, according to a press release by the agency.
• The “Magical Vacation Sweepstakes” encourages shoppers to text the keyword “Meijer” to a short code that will send back a hyperlink to the campaign’s website. Shoppers enter their email address to play a memory match game featuring Huggies products for a chance to win a trip to Orlando.
• The sweepstakes also will give away daily prizes like gift cards and discounts. Kimberly-Clark and Meijer are seeking viral publicity as participants share links to the campaign with friends on social media.

Dive Insight:

Kimberly-Clark and Meijer’s mobile promotion doesn’t have a lot of fancy bells and whistles like virtual reality features and quirky geofilters, but it does harness the power of smartphones to reach a core audience. The campaign relies on text messaging and email to interact with customers, recognizing that 95% of Americans own a mobile device, per a January 2017 Pew Research Center study. The sweepstake also provides entertainment value, reflecting how short games can be a key way to engage mobile users. 

Mobile sweepstakes and contests can create additional ways to communicate with consumers who opt in to receive marketing messages like updates, alerts, special offers and other information from a sponsor. Gathering email addresses of consumers is a popular method of developing more direct conversations with consumers, as long as marketers respect their privacy and properly manage customer opt-ins and opt-outs.

The mobile campaign also recognizes how email and social media can complement each other. Offering contestants incentives like a free gift if they invite friends in their social networks to participate could likely help the campaign reach more people. It’s important to start building relationships with new customers within the first few weeks after they opt in when they're most engaged with a new brand for optimized engagement.