Every so often a new promotion gets underway and it has a working title, such as the “Acme Las Vegas Sweepstakes”, because the brand (Acme is just being used for illustrative purposes, by the way) is having a sweepstakes and the prize is a trip to Vegas. We treat this as a working title, but there are lots of other elements to the sweeps – a celebrity tie-in with a cool throwback 90’s theme for the creative, and a grand prize trip to Las Vegas with a stay at the penthouse of a 5-star hotel, and a night backstage stage with a celebrity singer…. I mean, it’s a cool promotion!

But then the client ends up using the working title as the final name for the promotion.

The Acme Las Vegas Sweepstakes.

Which is fine.

Except….

It’s not very descriptive.

And it doesn’t really convey the theme of the promotion.

And it’s boring!

Don’t be boring.

There are better names for your promotion besides Brand Name + Name of Prize + Sweepstakes.

In our example, for instance, Acme could have gotten creative and come up with a catchy promotion title from the promotion theme, included a nod to the celebrity, and even gotten fancy with a synonym for Sweepstakes to have something like this:

The Acme 90’sThrowback Backstreet Does Vegas Giveaway

Or

The Acme Backstreet’s Back in Vegas Sweepstakes

So how do you make your promotion name better?

Follow this simple formula:

(Brand Name)

+ (1-2 word Description for the theme)

+ (1-2 word description of the prize)

+ (Type of Promotion)

= Super Cool Promotion Name!

Brand Name

The brand name is easy enough. Hopefully your legal department is good with using a shortened version if it’s super long (e.g. IHOP instead of International House of Pancakes), though, or no one will ever be able to tweet it!

1-2 word Description for the theme

Think of this as the opportunity to make the name unique and creative. Use the creative concepts for the promotion as inspiration – or flat out ask your creative team to brainstorm promotion names when they do the creative. Include a celebrity name or event if you are using one!

1-2 word description of the prize

For the 1-2 word prize description try to focus on the most exciting part of the prize, but keep it short. For some of you, the prize may be too hard to explain, or not that exciting, so leave this part out if that’s the case.

Type of Promotion

Finally, you can get creative with your type of promotion. You do not always have to say “Sweepstakes” or “Contest.” See the table below for alternatives.

Don’t end up with a boring promotion name! Make it unique and creative and fun!

Call us and we can get you started!

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