Campaign of the Week: Empire State Building’s #ESBMoment Contest

Concept: Photo contest to capture and highlight unique moments taking place at the Empire State Building

Objective: Encourage consumers to share their photos taken at the Empire State Building for the #ESBMoment photo competition

Digital Campaign Index (DCI) Score: 137

Use Case: Photo Contest with Voting

President Herbert Hoover dedicated the Empire State Building during a ceremony on May 1, 1931, and for 41 years it was considered the tallest building in the world. Since its completion, the Empire State Building has stood at the center of it all, a global symbol for New York City and innovation. It also happens to be one of the most photographed landmarks in the world, which makes sense considering 10,000 – 20,000 people visit the landmark each day.

The team behind the Empire State Building #ESBMoment Photo Contest didn’t have to look far for inspiration, as there’s already an enthusiastic global network of consumers engaging with the Empire State Building daily. The #ESBMoment photo contest, running through August 9th, 2017, tapped into a rich source of content about the Empire State Building and effectively encouraged consumers to take that next step and share with the brand. Their DCI score of 137 reflects a solid initial strategy while also providing opportunities for future campaign expansions.  

DCI Score Overview: 137

The Empire State Building’s #ESBMoment photo contest is on a solid course for success with a DCI Score of 137, comprised of an Engagement Score (ES) of 63 and a Virality Score (VS) of 212. This campaign’s overall DCI is elevated by its high virality score, which is a result of this campaign’s sharing and voting components.

The campaign’s DCI Score is the result of several best practices that the Empire State Building’s team implemented to encourage sharing, including adding a hashtag to their campaign, accepting submissions via social media and direct upload using the Wyng Photo and Video Contest use case. To maximize engagement, they also aggregated submissions into a photo gallery.

Like the Weather Channel did in last week’s Campaign of the Week, the Empire State Building team launched a multi-step campaign to maximize both engagement and virality. Consumers are first prompted to submit a photo, and then encouraged to vote on their favorite submission each week. Six rounds of submissions and fan faves voting encourages even more engagement and sharing before a grand prize winner is announced on August 26th.

Check out more details on their mid-campaign Engagement Score (ES) and Virality Score (VS) below.

Engagement Score (ES): 63

• Add a photo gallery: The Empire State Building team increased the likelihood that consumers would stay on their page by incorporating a scrolling photo gallery that features all submissions, increasing time on site and clicks on the latest photos.
• Have a clear call to action: It’s important to provide clear, specific guidance on how to participate in the campaign. In this case, “submit a photo of a moment at the Empire State Building”, aids in reducing confusion that might prevent consumers from participating. This is a simple, yet effective way to optimize consumer engagement.  
• Enable multiple rounds of voting: Once the initial photo submission period ends in early August, then consumers will be encouraged to come back to the campaign page, vote again, check on the status of their favorite photos and see what new photos have been uploaded, which will likely boost their engagement score even further as the campaign continues to run.

Virality Score (VS): 212

• Embed the campaign on a social media platform: The Empire State Building knows that most consumers spend at least some of their day on Facebook, checking in, posting photos and updating their statuses. By embedding the campaign on Facebook, they lowered the bar for consumers to share their posts and favorites with their networks, driving earned reach and earned visits.
• Include a hashtag for sharing: A simple way to increase sharing is to enable entry submission using a campaign hashtag on social. Not only did the Empire State Building team allow consumers to directly upload their photos, but they also encouraged submissions by sharing to Twitter or Instagram using the campaign hashtag #ESBMoment and #contest.
• Enable automatic sharing: The Empire State Building team optimized their campaign to be easily shared by participants and consumers voting on their favorites. By embedding their campaign on Facebook, they were able to enable an automatic share pop up to the voting component encouraging people to share the photos they voted for.

The Empire State Building team optimized their campaign to take advantage of the content already being published by enabling people to simply add #ESBMoment and #contest to enter the contest and by incorporating their campaign into their Facebook page. The team might also consider adding the campaign gallery to their website, or creating a Countdown Calendar embed to unveil their fan fave winner each week to increase engagement even further.

To learn more about the Empire State Building’s #ESBMoment photo contest, visit their campaign on Facebook here.  

Learn more about the Wyng Digital Campaign Index here.