Auntie Anne’s saw 34 percent of submissions for a recent sweepstakes made via mobile, pointing to the growing role that the medium is playing in merchants’ marketing strategies.

The pretzel bakery chain launched the sweepstakes to drive awareness of a new product, the Honey Whole Grain Pretzel. The effort included QR codes, SMS, mobile advertising, a mobile game and a mobile-optimized site.

“Our data shows that over one third, 34 percent, of all registrants registered for the sweepstakes via mobile,” said Meredith Hillman, account director and vice president at ePrize, Pleasant Ridge, MI.

“To us, this demonstrates the extent to which Auntie Anne’s target is on the go using their mobile devices, and how ePrize is going to increasingly see a huge push toward connecting brands with customers via mobile,” she said.

“Marketers are striving to start conversations to better engage with their customer base, and what better channel than mobile.”

 Auntie Anne’s worked with ePrize to launch the multichannel engagement program.

Mobile gaming
The Honey Whole Grain Pretzel promotion was launched earlier this year at all 1,325 Auntie Anne’s locations around the country, giving customers the opportunity to enter a sweepstakes and win instant prizes.

The program included sampling events where customers received a decoder card with a unique code and a QR code that could be scanned and link users to a mobile-optimized site where they could enter the sweepstakes.

On the microsite was a pretzel rolling game that users could play for a chance to win an instant prize. At the end of the game, users were presented with a coupon.

The effort also included in-store signs informing customers that they could text a keyword to a short code to enter the sweepstakes.

Additionally, online and mobile advertising appeared on sites and blogs frequented by moms – the primary target for the effort – that included a link back to the microsite.

SMS engagement
The $25,000 reward sweepstakes received 211,173 registrants, double the goal for the program. One-third of these came from the mobile Web or via SMS.

Drilling down further on the mobile engagement, the campaign saw 11 percent of registrations come in via SMS. Florida was the top state using SMS registration, with 10 percent of all registrations.

California and Illinois were tied as a close second with 9 percent and Pennsylvania coming in at 8 percent of SMS registrations.

In terms of age breakdown, 33-44 year olds used SMS the most, at 25 percent while 25-34 age bracket carried 24 percent of the SMS registrations, and the 18-24 age range had 22 percent.

Other results include that 59 percent opted-in to the merchant’s Pretzel Perks email program to receive offers and promotions while the conversion rate reached 61 percent.

Social sharing
Overall, the campaign drove more than 1.6 million sweepstakes entries and had high engagement levels, with consumers spending an average of 3:55 minutes on the site each visit and visiting an average of 7.6 times.

Word-of-mouth engagement via Twitter and Facebook contributed to the promotion’s success, with more than 4,800 tweets, and more than 13,000 shares on Facebook.

More than a third of people referred to the campaign through Facebook went on to register themselves.

“Auntie Anne’s found a creative way to offer consumers a very desirable $25,000 grand prize, but through the registration process, entrants were also given the opportunity to better learn about the new Honey Whole Grain Pretzel product through online pretzel twisting games, trivia, in-store “Sample Saturday” pretzel samplings and more,” Ms. Hillman said.

“Through mobile and online engagement, customers were better able to get to know the Auntie Anne’s brand and new product offerings,” she said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York