It’s a little game without consequences. Or almost. You just have to spend a few minutes on Instagram to get caught there: between the holiday videos of our best friends and the latest selfie of our favorite star, some publications stand out for the number of comments and “likes” they engender. “Contests” often announce the descriptions of these photos, with a lot of emojis and capital letters. Dream trips abroad, luxury watches or jewellery, handbags or even gym memberships… Brands and influencers regularly offer their subscribers the chance to win one or more prizes, simply by entering a draw. to the lot which will be organized by them. To do this, there is no financial prerequisite: users will most of the time only have to like the brand’s account, comment on the photo by mentioning the name of one or two friends, and possibly share it on their own. account. Participants who have met all these conditions will then have a chance to be chosen at random, and will receive the gift that made them dream so much on their news feed. A quick, easy and addictive process that some Internet users know only too well.
At 27, Anaïs thus “fell into it” during the long days of the first confinement. As the hours dragged on and Instagram had become an escape from boredom, the young marketing manager began to take an interest in these famous contests. She participates in a draw, then two, then three. And start winning. A “box” of customizable flowers, candles, beauty products… This Lille resident receives the lots directly at home, for which she sometimes publishes several dozen comments below the same publication. “It became automatic: I happened to participate in 10 or 15 contests in the same day, and to spend 1h30 to 2h per day there. I even created several Instagram profiles to be able to play”, explains t -she. Now subscribed to more than 4,000 profiles on the social network, “most of which are contest pages”, Anaïs finds her account there. She recently won a trip to Madagascar, a helicopter flight, or even hundreds of euros in vouchers for clothes or household appliances. “In all, I won more than 200 prizes in two years,” she says, delighted.
“Impressive virality”
But the young woman is far from being the only “big winner” of this type of contest. “For the brands that offer them, they are a marvelous tool for visibility, promotion and customer loyalty”, emphasizes Ronald Boucher, head of the data and digital e-commerce master’s degree at ISTEC. According to a study carried out by the influencer marketing agency Reech in October 2021, this type of partnership thus comes second (54%) in the list of collaborations favored by brands and agencies with influencers – just after the content production for the brand (58%), and ahead of simple product placement (45%). And for good reason: if the game is organized at the right time of year and with the right influencer, according to the specialist, it could allow certain brands to rejuvenate their image, attract new customers, or even make themselves known to the general public. audience. “By offering big prizes, such as computers or luxury bags, the number of subscribers of certain brands on Instagram can literally explode. The virality is impressive: we can go up to 60,000, 80,000 new followers“, abounds Yannick Pons, head of creative and commercial development at Reech. And if they are followed by real brand loyalty work, it is then “possible to keep up to 80% of the subscriptions earned during a contest… Which then translate into leads and direct sales.”
Valentine, co-founder of the I-doll women’s ready-to-wear boutique in Laval (Pays de la Loire), can only confirm. At the very beginning of the first confinement, the manager contacted fashion influencer Diane Perreau on Instagram. The goal ? Promote your brand and distance selling via the profile of the young woman – who now has more than 342,000 subscribers on the social network – and create a contest allowing their fans to win several prizes directly from the brand. “While we only had 700 subscribers, we gained more than 10,000 in a few days … And it continues,” admits Valentine. Last January, a new raffle organized with the influencer swelled the accounts of 15,000 followers, while the creation of a website promoted by Diane Perreau and other celebrities on the networks made it possible to boost the popularity of the store. “These partnerships have enabled us to increase our turnover by at least 20 to 35%”, estimates Valentine.
For this exchange of good practices, the co-founder claims not to have paid Diane Perreau. “With the girls we work with, we work more on gifts,” she explains. The influencer wants to be transparent. “These partnerships and contests can be done free of charge for certain brands, or with exchange of gifts. For others, it can amount to a few thousand euros per post… But we report three or four times more to the brand or the agency, it’s important to remember that”, she analyzes. Depending on the influencers chosen, prices can quickly skyrocket. “It goes from a hundred euros to several thousand, even tens of thousands, it all depends on the person chosen”, confirms Yannick Pons, who nevertheless recalls that less than 5% of those who claim to be “influencers” live really about their job. But beyond the salary, these influencers largely find their account in the organization of these contests. According to the Reech study, 60% of them also cite these prize draws as the most desired partnership with brands – in 4th position after the production of content for the brand (71%), partnerships ” common thread ambassadors” (69%), or simple product placement (67%). “These partnerships simply make it possible to please your community, and therefore to increase loyalty, the engagement rate and the reach of the account”, decrypts Stéphane Bouillet, founder of the Influence4you agency.
“You have to be careful”
“Unfortunately, some take advantage of it,” remarks Anaïs. It has thus already happened to the Lille woman never to receive the prize won after having participated in a contest. “The influencer was supposed to send me a 50 euro voucher for makeup, and she never did. She blocked me when I claimed it… It was clearly dishonest, to gain subscribers “, she regrets. Above all, nothing can prove to the participants that the winner was indeed chosen by chance. “I happened to start the draw again by hand once or twice, when the person chosen randomly in the comments did not have many subscribers, or was not very active on his Instagram account”, says such as Agathe*, former communication manager and organizer of such games for a start-up specializing in lifestyle. “If the second or third person stuck better, that’s who I chose, in order to have more visibility”. Faced with this kind of case and to silence the doubts of their community, more and more influencers are now filming the draw of their contests, even using specialized software excluding potential cheating or specifying to organize them under the control of ‘a bailiff.
But it remains a scam against which influencers and brands can do nothing. Regularly, Anaïs thus receives dozens of private messages on Instagram, from fake accounts posing as the organizers of the contest (very real, him), in which she has just participated. “They tell me that I won, and ask me to send my contact details for example… I’m not falling into the trap, but you have to be careful”. On social networks, fake competitions are even organized, from impersonated accounts of celebrities or created from scratch. “These are very well done scams, increasingly specialized and organized like a cartel,” says Benoît Grunemwald, expert for cybersecurity and antivirus company ESET. Thus, one person will be responsible for creating the fake game, another for setting up the fake profiles, another for identifying interested players, and a final one for contacting them. “From there, we can imagine anything: theft of data, bank details, identity theft, account hacking…”. The specialist warns: if these scams multiply, it is because the return on investment is positive. “Especially since anyone can now organize these games”.
“There is no approval to have to create this kind of competition, from the moment you respect the provisions of the consumer code”, underlines Anthony Bem, lawyer specializing in Internet law. For several years, the man has been regularly seized by organizers of contests, anxious to respect French law. “To be legal, these lotteries must not alter or be likely to alter the behavior of the average consumer, so you have to be very clear about the rules of the game,” explains the lawyer. As soon as the promise of winning is linked to a financial contribution, the game also falls within the framework of an unfair commercial practice, and therefore falls under the scope of the law. Finally, if the rules are not correctly followed or in the event of scams, Anthony Bem recalls that the organizers of the game can be accused of fraud or abuse of power, and prosecuted in the event of a complaint.