MARKETING SPOTLIGHT – Club Monaco Joins the Pinterest Contest Bandwagon

August 21, 2012

Pinterest “Pin to Win” contests are extremely popular with brands right now, in particular retail and home goods brands. The typical “Pin to Win” contest involves a brand creating a specially dedicated board to a Pin to Win contest on their Pinterest page. Throughout the duration of the contest, the brand pins items onto the board. Pinterest users that repin the items from the board are then entered into the contest, usually to win the item they repinned. There have been some variants to this, including brands that created the board into a puzzle, where users had to find the images needed to complete the puzzle on the brands’ social media profiles and website. For example, users would need to find puzzle pieces to the image of a car for a car company.

Ralph Lauren owned Club Monaco has joined the “Pin to Win” bandwagon. Similar to many other companies, Club Monaco created a board specifically dedicated to their contest. Each week, Club Monaco pins a new item on the board that users can win. For example, this week the image is of a scarf and earrings. Users that repin the items will be entered to win these items. The winner is announced at the end of each week, and the board is used to announce the winner. Users who click on the items are brought to Club Monaco’s “What’s Happening” page on their Facebook profile.

The contest is promoted via ClubMonaco.com and Club Monaco’s Facebook page.

What Club Monaco gets from this “Pin to Win” contest is increased brand exposure. Users that follow those who repin the items are exposed to Club Monaco products they may otherwise not have seen. The end result is added brand awareness and purchase intent.

I think “Pin to Win” contests are a great way for brands to increase their reach, and are especially appropriate for brands offering products that are more aspirational. Pinterest’s image focus caters well to products that users can aspire to (apparel, home decor, crafts, etc.).

While I think Club Monaco is doing a great job of using the new social media tool, I think they also need to up their marketing for the contest. For example, the “Pin to Win” board is at the very end of their Pinterest profile, so users have to scroll to the very bottom to see it. Since it is promotional, they should move it to the top, which is an easy fix. Additionally, the images of products to win should link to the product or product department on their e-commerce site. This will increase the likelihood Club Monaco would actually see conversions from their Pinterest marketing.