Consumers to go online to pick winning pet video in Petco Stars contest
Petco Animal Supplies Inc. will shortly be rounding up consumer-generated videos of the in-store winners of its Petco Stars contest, for which the preliminary round ran live in approximately 100 Petco stores last week. The owners of pet winners selected at the store level will be asked to upload a video of their pet performing to Petco.com, where the videos of 12 finalists as selected by Petco judges will then be posted at Petco.com. Petco customers will vote online for the winner later this summer.
The contest is using the free video upload and hosting service on YouTube.com. Store winners receive directions on how and where on YouTube to upload their video. Voting will be on Petco.com, using Petco`s own voting technology. Petco is No. 183 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide to Retail Web Sites.
It’s not the first time Petco has experimented with mixing user-generated video and marketing. This spring it added a new video option to its on-site customer review functionality by vendor Bazaarvoice Inc. Consumers now can not only write about how their dog loves the new chew toy – or not – but also upload video showing just how much Rover is enjoying the item. While Petco has done little publicity around the video reviews to date, vice president of e-commerce John Lazarchic says Petco may consider a contest to drive awareness of the tool this fall.
In an e-commerce environment where marketers have become accustomed to a precise measurement of ROI in traffic, clicks and sales, Lazarchic foresees a different kind of marketing payoff from consumer-generated video.
“At the end of the day we always want sales. And with the video reviews, if they are done well, I think we will see an uptick on the products that have this type of review. With the written reviews, we’ve been able to tie it back to ROI,” he says. “But I think the return with the video will be more on engagement with the web site, site stickiness, and people’s tendency to come back to Petco as a source of information than necessarily a direct purchase as a result of this technology.”
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