Chatbot contests: variety of choice

New contest panel: new opportunities

The thrill of competition, a faster heartbeat before the winners are announced and the hope of winning an attractive prize: these are only some of the reasons that drive users to take part in contests, and brands to organize them. Our motivation is to take particular steps to adapt the KODA Bots Platform to smoothly integrate the requirements of both stakeholders. 

We have changed the contest panel. We now allow any columns layout and creation for contest entries. There are several specific solutions to choose from:

• text – we can save messages entered by users separately;
• picture – we can create mixed contests, where users submit both a text and other multimedia (not necessarily mandatory);
• video file;
• audio file;
• tagging the winner – we can choose how many places we want to tag, e.g. if we have 5 prizes to give away (then we select 5 columns to tag particular places.)

These otherwise simple solutions help moderators to easily and quickly manage contest entries. The promoters can adjust the panel to their needs and the particular contest rules even before its launch, and decide whether the consents should display all or in a rolled-up form.

Examples of contest chatbots

As part of the best practices and examples, I’ve selected the interesting ones – not only in their form, but most importantly, that have proven themselves and brands keep coming back to them. 

Żywiec raffle chatbot

The Żywiec brand organizes a grand raffle every year. Having entered the code from the bottle cup or pull tab, users find out whether they have won one of the prizes. Our chatbot plays a crucial role in this campaign. It facilitates adding codes throughout the process. The fact that the chatbot appears on participants’ messenger contact list makes it always at hand, ensuring high recurrence rate of users. It can also answer all the most relevant questions about the rules, prizes and products participating in the campaign. The entire tool is integrated with the contest website. And even though we still cannot talk about the results, we are proud of its performance achieved so far (which sooner than later will be discussed in a separate case study.) 

The chatbot’s success is attributed to its ease of use. Users access the app installed on their smartphones and go through the entire contest process in a few simple steps. This is quick, user-friendly and seamless. 

Heineken Music contest chatbot

The case of Heineken proves how to engage in a simple way by using appropriate contexts. Who hasn’t been to the Open’er Festival? That’s right! The brand has been a long-time supporter of this world-famous music festival. It organizes a contest where you need to exhibit specific musical knowledge. And the chatbot is its key element. The contest consists in entering into the bot promotional codes from under the Heineken caps and pins, and then providing correct answers to five closed and one open question. Every day during the contest, two winners get prizes, if they answer all the questions correctly in the shortest time possible. 

In case you want to know how the contest works in theory, read below. If not – test it in action and proceed to the next example. ?

Chatbot provides information about the rules, prizes and allows users to accept the T&C as well as necessary consents. In the course of the game, those who report other matters than the contest are redirected to the fanpage moderator.

The conversation between the chatbot and the user follows a simple scenario:

1. Upon accessing the chatbot, the user selects whether they want to participate in the contest or have a problem to solve (in the latter case, we disable the chatbot and notify the moderator.)
2. The user checks the required consents to enter the contest.
3. Once the consents are ticked, they see a message prompting them to enter a code.
4. They enter the code:
   a) If the code is valid, they receive an invitation to continue the game.
   b) If the code is invalid, they see the message: “This is not a valid code, check if everything is correct or enter a different code.”
5. The next stage of the contest involves closed questions:
   a) It starts following the users confirmation (clicking the button.) At this point, the clock starts ticking.
   b) We display a series of five closed questions with answers and the user selects one.
   c) As long as the user answers correctly, the next questions appear.
   d) Once the user submits a wrong answer, they are told that they’ve made a mistake and can only start again after entering a new code.
6. The open question is displayed only, if the user answered all the closed questions correctly. Once the answer is entered and approved (message sent), the clock stops and the time’s recorded, and the participant expects to be informed of the results.

Orsay contest chatbot

In August, Orsay held a Facebook contest in line with the brand philosophy, which places great emphasis on relationships between women. Divided into five stages, it ran for seven days (one each Monday through Thursday and a weekend phase.) Each day there was a different photo contest task. The best entries won a set of two handbags, two bottles of perfume and a handmade card that the female winner (along with the handbag and perfume) could hand to a woman they considered important.

The contest relied heavily on the use of auto-answers under the posts and one of the participants, who took part in all five contest stages, received also a gift voucher for the Orsay store.