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Quick Summary: Participate in Microsoft’s Makeover My Office contest and get a free makeover for your home office.
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Microsoft India is running a really cool web 2.0 (-ish) contest called Makeover My Office, where the first prize is a free home office makeover package. The makeover package will include one Office 2007 Professional Edition, one Tablet PC with Vista Ultimate, one All-in-One Printer and (depending upon the winning entry) design services, flooring, paint, furniture, fixtures, and minor remodeling. There are also attractive prizes for the other entries.
But the prizes are not the only interesting thing about the contest. The contest’s web plus mobile plus television multi-media reality show format is also unique.
The contest runs in four stages –
Stage 1: Contestants upload an image of their cluttered home office and submit a 50-200 word essay describing how a makeover will improve their personal productivity and help their business. The last day of submitting entries is March 7th.
Stage 2: A panel of judges will evaluate the entries and shortlist five semi-finalists.
Stage 3: Viewers will then vote on the shortlisted entries via web and mobile. The winner will be decided on the basis of the judges’ score and the viewer votes.
Stage 4: The makeover of the winner’s home office will be telecast on a business news channel.
I find the format very exciting from a brand manager’s perspective. It uses a website to reach a target audience (home office owners) which is anyways likely to be active online. It taps into the wisdom of crowds via the web/ mobile viewer voting element. Most importantly, it lends “sex appeal” to an otherwise niche product-user combination (software for home offices) by putting the makeover on national television.
Of late, I have been approached by “branded content teams” at TV channels quite regularly, and this contest is proof that branded content has truly arrived in Indian television. The contest is also part of a larger trend of reality shows in India, hitherto seen only on television, becoming visible on the Internet (Live Mint).
By the way, it will be interesting to know how Microsoft India is promoting the contest, especially if it has an offline component Microsoft India is promoting the contest across online, radio, television and print. I’ll wait for the day when Internet penetration in India has become deep enough to make an online contest like this viable without offline advertising support. Incidentally, we ran the Xeta Shootout Contest without any offline advertising support and got a good number of entries.
Disclosure: Digital advertising agency Webchutney has developed the website for the contest. I first heard about the contest from friends in Webchutney.
