12 Valentine’s Day contest ideas to woo your audience

St Valentine’s Day, celebrated every year on February 14, has come to be known as the holiday of love 💗, and for you and your business, it’s the perfect opportunity to create memorable experiences for your customers and your audience.

But how do you continue to create memorable experiences that can gain traction with people over such a commercialised time of year? How can you stand out and keep things fresh? The answer is gamification. Playful, immersive, and universal in its appeal – it’s the perfect medium to connect with audiences with romance in mind.

Let’s explore some original ideas for marketing games to give your Valentine’s Day campaigns a playful and unforgettable touch!

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1. Romantic movie classics quiz (Video Quiz)

Most notions of romance and love come out of old Hollywood, so embrace the classics in your campaign! Help your audience discover, or rediscover cult scenes from romantic movies 🍿 through a video quiz.

Invite your audience to test their cinematic knowledge by identifying films and answering questions about these iconic moments. This is an entertaining way to create an interactive experience and spark their passion for movies, and an ideal tie-in if it’s in your industry: a streaming service, a movie publication, or even a cinema rerunning some classics most people won’t have enjoyed on the big screen 📽️ before.

2. Vote for your next romantic adventure (Voting Gallery)

People love holidays, and most people go on holiday with their romantic partner, and believe it or not, for a lot of people, part of the fun is deciding where to go. Travel is all about curiosity after all. Feed into that by inviting people to submit their details to vote for their dream romantic getaway destination (or getaway experience).

Participants who voted for the predetermined destination can then be entered into a prize draw for – you guessed it – a trip 🧳 for 2 to their dream romantic getaway. This is a great way for businesses in the tourism industry to capitalise on Valentine’s Day.

3. The wheel of love (Spin the Wheel)

How about customising a Spin the Wheel game expressly for Valentine’s Day? Load up the prize wheel with romantic goodies relevant to your brand (his n’ hers items, gift certificates to romantic restaurants or spa days, promo codes, or even a getaway for two), then embed it on your website, share it on social media, or even have a large terminal at your physical premises for your customers to play.

4. The greatest love songs quiz (Music Quiz)

Put your audience’s knowledge of classic or contemporary 💝 love songs 🎵 to the test.

Use the Quiz’s audio option to play a piece of a love song, and invite your audience to name the artist or song title. Mix up the format and ask them to answer some questions purely based on the lyrics…

5. Declaration of love puzzle (Puzzle)

Offer different images and photographs related to Valentine’s Day to put romance at the forefront of your audience’s minds this holiday. Invite them to put back together as many romantic images 🧩 as you like as fast they can to earn points and climb high in 💘 Cupid’s ranking. You can then arrange a draw among the highest scorers.

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6. Valentine’s Day quiz (Quiz)

Test your audience’s knowledge of famous couples from history, literature, or cinema, with a special Valentine’s Day quiz. Create a series of questions about legendary duos and couples such as Romeo and Juliet, Harold and Maude, or Bonnie and Clyde.

You can also use video and audio to illustrate your questions, such as showing a clip and asking players to select the next line from multiple choice options.

7. Repurpose the concept of the Advent calendar to capitalise on Valentine’s Day (Calendar)

When we say Advent calendar, you think of Christmas, but how about taking this very versatile format and adapting it to celebrate Valentine’s Day? If Valentine’s Day is one of your bigger commercial holidays (think jewellery, think candles, think florists, think high-end confectioners), then engaging your audience over a longer period and augmenting the occasion could make real commercial gains.

Every day a mini-game, audio visual content, or a contest awaits your participants, all carrying your branded messaging and feeding into the excitement around the holiday. You can conclude an experience on February 14 with a grand prize to be won through a draw, or tie it all into a final physical event at your store to deliver a phygital experience. You could also, if appropriate, create a leaderboard that runs throughout the experience that has bearings on the bigger prizes.

8. Gift matcher (Memory Game)

Present to your customers an engaging memory card game that also offers gift inspiration by showcasing your products and services.

Associate a gift idea with pairs of cards, and invite your audience to try and match them efficiently and quickly. With each match, you have the option of including pop-up content that educates them on that particular product or service. You can reward them by offering them a discount code at the end of play, while directing them to your site drive conversion. (You could even include a QR code link in your physical store with appropriate signage to help shoppers who know their Valentine likes what you sell, but runs out of ideas as soon as they cross your threshold.)

It’s an effective way to guide shoppers to gift ideas, while creating a direct link to your online store, and it’s easily adaptable to any business.

9. Lovers treasure hunt (Dynamic Path™)

Turn your physical store or website into a captivating treasure hunt with our Dynamic Path™. Hide codes in different strategic places, such as product shelves, pages of your website, or specially made or strategic sections of your online store, each unlocking a new stage of the treasure hunt, and each completed stage offering a clue to the location of the next code.

Customers will have to find all the codes and unlock all the steps to reach the finish and obtain an exclusive gift or promotional code. This will add a dose of excitement and interactivity to your customers’ shopping experiences.

10. Scratch and win gift cards (Scratch Card Game)

How about winning gift cards for Valentine’s Day? The Swiss Balexert shopping centre organised a big scratch card competition one Valentine’s Day to great effect. To participate, shoppers had to scan a QR code on shop windows and scratch a card online. The lucky winners could then withdraw their prizes directly at a stand dedicated to the event.

11. A cutest couple or magic moments contest (Photo Contest)

Offer a Photo Contest where participants must submit their best photos 📸 of romantic moments or places, or just a photo of themselves looking happy and in-love.

This idea can be adapted for any business looking to make the most of the holidays, whether the incentive for entering is a meal for 2, a trip for 2, or even camera equipment if that’s your business – the best kit for the most creative couple – it could literally be adapted to anything.

You could even connect the contest to a Voting Gallery to let your expanding audience choose the winners, and double your promotion’s effectiveness across social media in the process.

12. Who’s your perfect Valentine? (Personality test)

A personality test could be created to reveal a person’s ideal partner, or you could even make it a couple’s endeavour and have them answer questions to show which of the silver screen’s immortal couples they’re most like: Leia and Han, Jack and Rose, Rick and Isla, Wesley and Buttercup, Noah and Allie, etc. etc. You can customise it to suit the likely reference points of your target demographic. Devise the right questions for the test and reveal a specific profile based on the answers provided by each participant.

Expert advice

By incorporating gamification into your Valentine’s Day marketing strategy, you can provide your customers with unique, engaging, and memorable experiences on this very special occasion. Whether it’s through contests, online challenges, or phygital experiences, gaming helps strengthen connections with your audience, builds customer loyalty, and creates excitement around your brand.

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