11 Father’s Day contest ideas for the daddy of all campaigns

Father’s Day might not be as popular as Mother’s Day, but it’s still an amazing commercial opportunity with angles for all sorts of businesses to dramatically improve their sales and boost their brand.

According to the National Retail Federation, customers collectively spent $22.9 billion on Father’s Day in the US alone last year, with an estimated 75% of the population celebrating the occasion, with an average household spend of $196.23.

Wherever you’re based, there’ll be significant numbers of potential customers keen to spoil their father when the day comes, and well executed gamification concepts can be key to attracting new customers, and driving conversions on gift purchases.

Here are some of our best original concepts for online contests to drive sales on your next Father’s Day campaign, so if you’re looking for a jumping off point for an innovative marketing game, read on…

1. Nap nipper movie picker (Product Recommendation Quiz)

If your dad’s Superman, a soft chair or a warm fire is basically his kryptonite. The perennial master of opening jars, household DIY, and keeping your team’s coach honest, is about as much use as a sleepy housecat if it’s after 3pm and he’s even vaguely comfortable.

That’s why picking movies needs to be fast!

The Blockbuster days were different. You knew what you were watching well in advance, but streaming platforms have changed the game. With even just one subscription, you’ve got more new movies to watch than you have hours in the day, but with that comes analysis by paralysis – there’s never been more choice, but never greater opportunity cost.

Ask your audience questions about movies they’ve enjoyed before, their preferences on genres, their favourite actors, or if they prefer to watch movies with complete unknowns, then make a recommendation based on their answers so they can start watching, safe in the knowledge that dad will probably manage to stay awake until the very end..

More than just a solution for streaming services: Yes, this does work for streaming platforms, but if you’re an online or print publication in the entertainment space, like an Empire or a Total Film, this is a great way to connect with potential subscribers and encourage conversions, and collect user data.

2. My dad was cooler than your dad (Media Contest)

“My dad’s stronger than your dad!”

“My dad’s faster than your dad!”

“My dad’s smarter than your dad!”

Do you remember aimlessly arguing in the playground and after school about whose dad was better at X, Y and Z with your annoying (and objectively wrong) friend?

The days of getting dads to settle these arguments in their primes with a simple arm wrestling contest or lap around the school may be long gone for many people buying for this Father’s Day, but whipping out the old snaps of pops back in the day, whether that was the 60s, the 70s, the 80’s, or even the 90s, can blatantly put on show whose dad was sporting the coolest threads and the strongest look.

Invite your audience to take snaps of their old photographs and show their dads in their primes. Then connect your Media Contest to a Voting Gallery and invite your audience to vote – let whoever know, categorically, quantifiably, once and for all, if their dad was indeed cooler than everyone else’s.

The types of brands this work for: This could work well for fashion brands that maybe specialise in a timeless product. Maybe a watch company, maybe a premium sunglasses brand, maybe a denim company on the level of Levis and Wrangler, or an iconic sneaker or boot that’s stood the test of time – the kind of items that transcend generations and trends.

For whoever needs to hear it: Your dad’s still cool.

3. Papa’s pentathlon (Combo™)

As a kid, did you ever watch your dad squander his days off work doing the weirdest things? Crossword puzzles, gardening, ironing… Basically chores and punishment? As you’ve grown older, do you find yourself slowly starting to enjoy and look forward to those dad-centric activities that inspired so much fear and loathing in your younger years?

Introducing Papa’s pentathlon – 5 games users play through in a direct sequence, 5 times as many opportunities to engage your users in your branded messaging. The concept? Whose best at “dad things?”

Take your users through a Crossword Puzzle, a Pacman game customised into a dangerous game of mowing the lawn where you try to cut down every blade of grass (the collectible items) while pursued by angry neighbourhood dogs (the ghosts), a Quiz about the American Civil War, some free throws with a branded Basketball Game, and close the show with an instant win game to distribute promotional codes. These are just examples.

The top 20 on the leaderboard at the end will be entered into a prize draw to win premium prizes. A pentathlon is a competition, after all.

The types of brands this work for: Multiple games can put eyes on multiple products, so this could work for department stores or eCommerce brands with a lot of product categories. However, a fun, longer form, high concept gamification experience like this can be adapted for almost any brand.

Pro tip: Drimify has a vast catalogue of customisable games you can include in a Combo™, as well as the options to include intermediate content screens with video to further optimise your messaging, so there’s plenty of scope to apply this format to your specific industry and needs.

4.”Who’s your daddy?” (Personality Test)

Ask your audience a series of hypotheticals from their childhood and at the end, assign them a pop-culture father.

Play it straight down the middle with staple role models like Mufasa, Furious Styles, Uncle Phil, and Brian Mills (Liam Neeson in Taken), or play with your audience and make it tongue in cheek with less desirable dads like Darth Vader, Homer Simpson, or Mr Wormwood (Matilda’s dad) – whatever works for your brand’s tone of voice and audience.

A super versatile Father’s Day concept for the entertainment industry: This could be adapted to work for a cinema chain running a season of throwbacks featuring classic dads of cinema, or a streaming platform looking to generate engagement or attract more subscribers.

Equally, if you’re a bookseller, in bricks-and-mortar stores or online, adapt the idea to classic dads of literature. Jean Valjean? Heathcliffe? Arthur Weasley? Atticus Finch?

5. Father Fortune (Slot Machine)

This one’s a winner for any business selling any product or service looking to maximise their conversions this Father’s Day.

Include a range of items that would make ideal Father’s Day gifts as the lure to participate, make the losing item a generic promotional code to drive conversions, and invite users to pull the lever for a chance to win!

Integrate instant win games here, there, and everywhere: Instant win games are a fun way of rewarding your audience with a chance at a prize – big or small. They work across the marketing spectrum from awareness and activation, right through to revenue and retention.

Put QR codes in your adverts and at your store front, and embed them on your strategic web pages and your loyalty app.

6. Which whisky? (Product Recommendation Quiz)

Is your dad a single malt man, a rye guy, a peat lover, an aficionado of fine bourbons, or did everything I just said fly right over your head?

Introducing the “Which Whisky?” game – potential customers answer questions about their father’s tastes, to be presented with an extra special bottle of whisky at the end (or whiskey depending on its country of origin).

Whether you’re a department store, a fine beverages online emporium, or a local bottle shop, customising a Product Recommendation Quiz allows you to put a spotlight on a range of bottles you’re looking to promote. Each whisky’s profile page can include an ideal meal or cheese pairing, a unique cocktail recipe if appropriate, and most importantly, include a call to action button that takes users to the product page to maximise your chances of conversion.

Why this works: Dad might love to knock back a few drams of Laphroaig, but getting him a bottle of his usual or doubling something in his cabinet isn’t exactly a unique gift. And not every 18-plus (or 21-plus) son or daughter necessarily knows enough about specialist beverage genres to make the most informed choices. If your outlet is maximising their chances of buying the perfect gift, the more likely they are to buy with you.

The concept can apply to anything too. Maybe it’s coffee beans, maybe it’s ales, maybe it’s fine cheeses or specialty meats.

7. Father’s Day feats of strength (Voting Gallery)

Can your 70-year-old dad still throw out 10-plus pull-ups with perfect form? Can he still dunk? Has he kept his parkour skills sharp? Has the famous “dad-strength” imbued him with the necessary musculature to do one-handed finger-tip pushups?

Invite your audience to send in videos of their dads defying Father Time and showing they’ve still got it with a Media Contest, then share highlight videos to promote a connected Voting Gallery on social media.

This kind of concept could work great for fitness brands of all types: for those manufacturing and distributing nutrition, equipment, athletic wear, or more general sports retailers.

8. Dad rock redemption (Music Quiz)

How well do you know your dad’s music?

A great way to promote your brand in the run-up to Father’s Day is to challenge your audience to listen to (or watch) clips of the kind of music their dads still listen to and try to answer related questions. “Complete the next lyric…” “Name the song from the intro.” “Which band sang this classic rock anthem?”

Include a leaderboard and reward the top performers with grand prizes.

The types of brands this work for: This is primarily a slam dunk for booking and ticket service providers, large music venues, audio streaming platforms, record stores, and any brand specialising in music merchandise or memorabilia, but depending on your Father’s Day promotion, it could be adapted to a number of businesses.

9. Sports Dad Superleague (Leaderboard Combo™)

Sporting icons frequently feature a Richard Williams or an Enzo Calzaghe guiding them through their careers, but how many Instagram Reels or Tiktoks have you seen of new dads and ones-to-be humorously joking about the carnivore diet or wild training regimes their babies are about to be thrown into? “Just building the next LeBron.” “This is how I’m gonna make my kid the next Gronk.”

In the Sports Dad Superleague, you can, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, invite your audience to act as a sports dad – determined at all costs to turn their kid into a sporting icon, no matter the game. The NBA or the NFL would be nice. The Premier League and representing their country at the World Cup? Fantastic! A starting spot in the Six Nations squad and a regular call up to the British & Irish Lions? Magic!

Unify players’ scores across a Basketball Game, an American Football Game, a Football Game, and a Rugby Rugby Game in our Leaderboard Combo™ – a global leaderboard you can embed on your website for participants to check in on throughout the campaign.

The possibility of climbing into the top 20 and becoming eligible for a prize as you release different games is a great way to sustain repeated engagements, and build a community among your fans.

This ones for sports fans: Sports streaming platforms like DAZN and ESPN+, or sports TV channels can use this kind of highly shareable concept to drive up subscriptions and viewships, as well as promote big fixtures.

The Leaderboard Combo™ app could even work for sports teams looking to elevate the fan experience. Instead of different sports games, mirror your team’s season and have the different customisable options in sports games reflect the opposition and the stadium for key clashes.

10. Dadliest Catch (Pacman)

The mechanics are identical to Pacman, but by swapping the Pacman character to a hardy fishing vessel built for ferocious polar seas, the collectible items to Alaskan king crabs, and the ghosts or enemies to a kraken, a megalodon, and a mosasaurus, you get Dadliest Catch!

How many crabs can your audience collect while avoiding the extinct and mythical beasts of the sea? Immerse them in the fun narrative and gameplay (loosely based on a classic dad-favourite docuseries but embellished with some sci-fi monsters for extra fun), then take them to an intermediate content screen so they can absorb your branded messaging before you show them where they are on the leaderboard.

The types of brands this works for: The example above is ideal for companies selling or manufacturing fishing gear or ocean-based experience providers, but the Pacman game engine is a surprisingly adaptable one (check out our other marketing calendar articles to see just how many concepts we’ve already come up with).

It’s basically a main character running around a maze collecting items and clashing with enemies, so on the Drimify platform it’s a blank canvas to illustrate an engaging branded experience no matter what industry your business is in.

11. For the father to be (Advent Calendar)

As much as Father’s Day is about appealing to the sons and daughters looking to buy gifts, Father’s Day is an occasion that would carry particular significance for dads-to-be, as it’s such a huge responsibility that they’ve taken on.

If you’re in the business of diapers, cribs, baby clothing, baby food, prams, life insurance, and pretty much anything else you can think of that would be marketing to would-be and new parents, an Advent Calendar around Father’s Day could be just the marketing initiative to connect and build loyalty with new customers.

Taking the Advent Calendar, you can mix and match customised apps and content screens that educate the user about your product(s), and also offer value-adding tips and hacks for their first few months with their new baby.

The whole experience is held together in the visual of a digital calendar, and different apps and content screens open up sequentially by date – either one a week, or one per day, for however long is most appropriate for your campaign.

Expert advice

By incorporating gamification into your next Father’s Day campaign, you can engage all sorts of new customer personas – from gift buyers finally learning what gets their old man out of bed in the morning, to new fathers contemplating the next big chapter in their lives.

The key is knowing who you’re appealing to, having a well thought out, on-brand concept, and promoting it extensively across all your available channels.

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