Pavlov’s Online Sweepstakes?

If Pavlov were alive today would he be working for the BIC Soleil razor brand? Based on BIC Soleil’s “100 Days of Sunny Moments” online sweepstakes, it’s highly possible.


The “100 Days of Sunny Moments” online sweepstakes contains four main points that not only make it a great example of how to run a sweepstakes, but also improves upon the Pavlovian concept seen in sites such as woot.com.

1. Daily Drawing with Four-Hour Entry Time Frame – Why condition dogs to drool when you can get humans to rush to your web site everyday from 1:00PM – 5:00PM ET to enter your daily drawing? Unlike most contests that offer a 24 hour entry period, BIC gives registered participants a four hour entry period.

2. Surprise Daily Bonus Prizes- I was pleasantly surprised one day to find that I could enter the bonus prize drawing for that day. BIC doesn’t list when their surprise bonuses will be held, which creates the extra incentive to return to the site each day, even if you’re not interested in the daily prize, so you don’t miss out on entering the drawing for the bonus prize.

3. Voting for Grand Prize as part of Entry – Instead of merely having participants enter the grand prize drawing, BIC has participants vote for one of two vacation spots while entering the grand prize drawing. The vacation destination with the most votes will be the grand prize. (This is also a fantastic way to end internal bickering in your department when it comes to choosing a grand prize.)

4. Transparency – BIC lists the daily prize winners and poll results for Grand Prize voting on the site so site visitors can see that the contest is legitimate.

If you’re going to have an online sweepstakes for a geographical region that only covers a few time zones, using the daily limited time period seems like a good way to increase repeat participation. What do you think?