When I was working with Steam Whistle, In 2022 as a sponsor of North by North East music festival, we approached the event organizers with the opportunity to partner on an online contest for a NXNE VIP weekend experience. Once we got the green light, we invited the other key event sponsors to contribute to the prize pack and enhance the prize value of $3600. Bulova Watches, Blundstone Footwear Company, The Gladstone Hotel and indie88 radio all helped us to enhance the prize value of $3600 and also maximize our organic reach potential.

We leveraged our relationships with all participating NXNE venues that sold our beer to communicate the contest opportunity through onsite signage featuring a QR code. The QR code led to our contesting microsite where people could opt into our email database for an additional entry (first entry was a social follow of all participating brands and a post comment).

The contest helped us to grow our social following by 3.2% and our email database by 7% and provided similar respective growth to our contesting partners while showcasing the brand as a supporter of arts and culture in Toronto.