March Madness is an ideal event for all marketers: it has a large audience, comes between major holidays and season changes, and brackets are easy to emulate for any topic. You have most likely seen quite a few brand bracket challenges so far. Out of all the awesome campaigns, here’s our final four:
Dove Men+Care
Dove Men+Care has an official NCAA partnership, making it quite a bit easier to run a March Madness campaign. The landing page for the campaign features NCAA fun facts, top picks, polls, an integrated Twitter feed, and a headlining sweepstakes. Dove capitalizes on the fact that making decisions for your bracket is hard, but playing for prizes is easy, just like choosing Dove Men+Care.
Cool factor? Smoothly integrating product polls with game-related polls:
Capital One
Capital One also has a partnership with the NCAA and sponsors the official bracket challenge. Easy enough, but the financial institution is also having tons of fun on Twitter. Our favorite? The “Fanimal” contest – show your pet wearing fan gear for a chance to win $1500. Simple, engaging, and adorable.
Are you and your pooch getting ready for #Sweet16? Keep tweeting your Fanimal pics w/ #KaCHING for a shot at $1500! pic.twitter.com/bS5RmfXByz
— Capital One (@CapitalOne) March 27, 2014
Oreo
We know, we know, everyone hears about Oreo all the time. But they shot to our top four with this particular tweet:
When it’s dunk time, there’s no mason around. #DunkSwag pic.twitter.com/ew5i5OaNy6 — Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) March 28, 2014
World Kitchen
World Kitchen brings us Pyrex, Corningware, Corelle, and other varieties of awesome kitchen brands. They also brought another favorite bracket that may tie with pets: food. World Kitchen is running a bracket challenge for best recipes, called Recipe Madness. Four of World Kitchen’s brands: Baker’s Secret, Snapware, Pyrex, and Corningware entered eight different, delicious-looking recipes.
The final two in this bracket are “Chili for a Crowd” and “Slam-Dunking Cookies.” Here’s hoping that chili wins! Also, if you can participate in this bracket and not get hungry, more power to you. World Kitchen does a great job capturing the essence of March Madness while seamlessly integrating their products in recipes and imagery.
What other March Madness campaigns should have made our final four? Let us know in the comments.
