The document summarizes three video contests run by Cisco over two years to showcase best practices in social media marketing. The earliest contest in 2008 focused on video syndication and blogger outreach. Subsequent contests employed more social media channels like Twitter and targeted college students. The most recent contest in 2010 received 178 submissions and 5.9 million video views through improved promotion using social media influencers, paid advertising, and a live announcement event. Key lessons highlighted optimizing resources, engagement, and collaboration to sustain momentum in video contests.

1. Marketing 2.0
Evolution of Contest
Marketing at Cisco
A Case Study From Cisco Marketing Organization‟s
Perspective
September 2010
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2. „What If Your TV Could..?”
Digital Cribs
„Heaven
or Hell‟
http://bit.ly/d7O4nj
www.ciscocontest.com
„Why I Want Cisco
Telepresence‟
http://bit.ly/9eUAdI
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3. The following case study compares three video contests led
by three different organizations within Cisco over the past two
years who collaborated to showcase best practices and the
overall impact of social media video contests on marketing.
Please keep in mind that there are several differentiating
factors between the three contests as new social media
channels such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn have
developed and been more heavily used by businesses over
the past two years.
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4. Cisco Service Provider Game Marketing
Contest Comparison
Digital Cribs “Why I Want Cisco “What If Your
“Heaven or Hell‟ Telepresence” TV Could…?”
Contest  10/28/2008-11/28/2008  06/23/2009-10/09/2009  05/13/2010-07/13/2010
Launch Dates  1 month  3.5 months  2 months
 Create a video 3 minutes  Create a video 3 minutes  Create a video 3 minutes
Contest Details or less or less or less
 Global program  Global program  Global program
Contest Location Online Online Online
Contest Focus Awareness Product Awareness Awareness
Get fun, creative, technology
Drive end user driven viral
Generate video submissions, video submissions from
communication about Cisco
Contest Objectives awareness & views of all consumers to help increase
Telepresence using video
Digital Cribs video content perception of Cisco as a leader
submissions.
in the video space
 (2) USD$10,000  (2) USD $3000  (1) USD$10,000
Prize Structures
 (10) USD$500  (2) USD$1000  (3) USD$500
TOTAL= USD$25,000 TOTAL= USD$8,000 TOTAL= USD$11,500
+5 hours free Telepresence
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5. Cisco Service Provider Contest Marketing
Marketing Comparison
Digital Cribs “Why I Want Cisco “What If Your TV
“Heaven or Hell” Telepresence” Could….?”
Promotional Budget
$63,500 $25,000 $20,000
(excl. prizes)
Traditional and social
Introduced internally first to
Introduction Method Traditional and social Traditional and social encourage pass-along also
included „seeded videos‟ created
at local events
 LinkedIn & Twitter added to
the promotional mix
 Tweeted ideas to spark
people‟s imagination
 Heavy focused on video  Vibrant media advertising  Targeted outreach to non-
Unique Marketing syndication of submitted traditional Cisco segments via
videos  Contest promotion internally social media and live locations
Techniques Used for (Mommy blogger outreach,
Each Campaign  Blogger outreach to traditional  Contest promoted in executive certain schools)
Cisco segments Blogs
 Poster created for email
distribution and displayed in
local businesses and schools
 Promotion integrated into
events and conferences
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6. Cisco Service Provider Contest Marketing
Contest Comparison
Digital Cribs “Why I Want Cisco “What If Your TV
“Heaven or Hell” Telepresence” Could….?”
Total Accepted
Video Submissions
50 25 178
Total Video Views
(over entire contest 350,000 32,000 5,900,000
period)
Average Views per
Day (scaled to
account for varying 11,700 views per day 300 views per day 98,000 views per day
duration)
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7. By the “What If Your TV Could…” campaign, we learned how
to promote a contest at less than 1/3 the cost of the “Heaven
or Hell” promotional budget and reached more people
BUT…
How well did the new marketing techniques used for the “What
If Your TV Could…” contest work?
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8. We Planted the Seed by Creating a Cisco
TV Contest Brand…
Twitter. New Account
@CiscoContest
Objective
 Contest-specific account
 Follow targeted audience
 Results
 155 followers in 10 weeks
 Total reach: 488,636
 174 Tweets
* Twitter only. Excludes 1000‟s of mommy blogger followers, write-ups in many
other online publications and blogs, and Facebook.
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9. …Which Many Have Embraced:
WOM* Promotion Appeared on Over 47 Sites
*WOM = word of mouth
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10. Mommy Bloggers: 12 Influential
Bloggers
Objective
 Increase reach by engaging a pre-determined set of
influential mommy bloggers
 Ask to promote contest to their followers, and submit
their own video for Flip giveaways
Results
 Over 1,293 comments on mommy blogger sites
 Generated 307 hits to
the Contest web page
 Total Reach: 122,786
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11. Mommy Bloggers in Action
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12. College and Specialty School Outreach
Objective
 Reach students in media
programs to encourage video
submissions
 Mail posters (email and US
post) for distribution on campus
Results
 Reached over 65,000 students
 Drove over 1,200+ visitors to
contest page
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13. Targeted Outreach via Posters at Colleges,
Specialty Schools and Businesses
Traditional methods help seed the contest even in the
virtual world.
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14. Paid Promotion on Social Media Channel
Objective
 To extend the reach of the contest
via social media channels
Strategy
 8 sub-campaigns for test
and deployment
 The 2 strategies to place media
within Facebook are based on cost-per-click and
cost-per-thousand impressions payment methods
Results
• 203.5 Million impressions – with slightly over
50,000 converting to the landing pages and
campaign visitors
• The ROI for this program has been 3-4X the
performance of similar programs
• The net CPM basis was $0.08 per 1,000 impressions
vs. $0.63 + for comparable “Cisco” programs
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15. 2008 2009 2010
Digital Cribs “Why I Want Cisco “What If Your TV
“Heaven or Hell” Telepresence”” Could…?”
 Global tax laws must be  Announcing more than 1 winner  Duration of contest is very
considered for contest marketing was a good idea but a higher- important to sustain momentum
and legal terms and conditions value grand prize augmented
with more smaller prizes would  Blogger and college outreach were
 Multiple prizes helped boost have helped boost participation very effective and helped increased
awareness and video submissions awareness
 Determining stakeholders is crucial
 Clearly identify your target audience to contest success  Go-to-market strategy was fully
prior to contest to ensure promoting integrated and worked well
to relevant outlets  Promotional spend critical behind
success of campaign  Not only did introducing the contest
 Promotional spend helped increase internally first helped with testing
awareness of the contest  Created an easy-to-remember URL but it also helped increase “pass
along” effect
 Video syndication and blogger  Ensure contest rules are put-in-
outreach helped promote contest place early on to (example: using  Creating an event to announce
the popularity vote to create a winners not only helped extend the
community and spread virally) life of the contest but also provided
a platform to share Cisco‟s vision of
video, thus directly tying back the
contest to related solutions
 Early seeding with sample videos
submissions spurred ideas and
provided content
from day 1
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16. Live UStream Event Combined with Talk2Cisco
Cisco‟s Murali Nemani, Director of Video
Solutions Marketing, Cisco Service Provider
Marketing, will announce the contest winners
and discuss Cisco‟s role in helping to develop
new television platforms that give consumers
more of what they want.
Objective
Use opportunity to announce via a live social stream broadcast to position Cisco
as a thought leader in the video market & to give „share of voice‟ to the greater
community.
Impact?
 Achieved 15x playback rate during the post-live broadcast period
 Tweets around live broadcast reached over 50,000 followers on Twitter
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17. Contest + Event Combo Has Exceeded
Expectations for Cisco TV Contest…
 Video submissions: 178
 Video requests (# of times videos were viewed):
5,900,000
 Comments/Ratings Average: 22,000 ratings,
1,000+ comments
 Event attendees: 1,609 attendees
 Total reach: 488,636
…BUT we wish we had known or done a few things sooner
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18. 9 Lessons Learned
1. Test: Test and test front and back end web functionality and video loading in all browsers. (If
your contest requires a certain browser, make sure you state it up front)
2. Metrics and Rules: Ensuring that clear metrics and contest rules are established before you
begin your program.
3. Start of promotion: Beginning blogger outreach one week prior to the contest versus during
the contest will help further increase word-of-mouth marketing.
4. Resources: Estimating amount of time and effort it takes to sustain social media momentum
throughout the contest period.
5. Continued Momentum: Lining up team members dedicated to engaging in social media long
term and splitting the workload among them. Making this part of somebody‟s job
responsibilities, hiring part-time and/or temporary help would help further.
6. Timing of announcement: Leaving two weeks before announcing winner in order to get
winners on Telepresence.
7. Budget: Promotional spend is critical to the success of the campaign. Don‟t underestimate
budget. A video contest including promotional spend and building out the website costs an
average of $100,000.
8. Prizes: Make sure the prizes are motivating & the contest is FUN.
9. Collaboration: Willingness to learn from and share with each other to develop a successful
benchmark.
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19. Many Thanks to…
Doug Webster, Robert Barlow, Murali Nemani, Deborah Strickland, Sara Cicero, Stacy Melillo Spognardi, Mike Kisch, Richard
Mullen, Jeffrey Marusak, Steve Lau, Paul Lanyi, LaSandra Brill, Heike Stabenow, Karen Snell, Dennis Marpuri, Petra Neiger,
Leslie Lau, Don Nelson, David Deans, Rhoda Rosales, Martin Hardee, Alex Pista, Brian Gin, Patricia Klein, Stephen Liu,
Merwin Shanmugasundaram, Janet Starkey Wallin, and Lindsay Kniffin of Cisco for their contributions to this presentation and
partnership on the Contest.
A very big thank you to everyone who promoted the contest using social media channels.
Supporting Agencies:
3Marketeers-Social Media Support & Facebook Ads
New Marketing Labs-Social Media Support
Somnio-Video Design
Solution Set-Back end vendor
The Platform-Front end vendor
Artua LLC / "STK BIS" LLC-”TV” logo designer
By Zoya Fallah
zfallah@cisco.com
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