In this edition of Promotions Seen, we’ll review 13 prize promotions and see how brands have leveraged in-store space with point-of-sale (POS) displays, with an emphasis on the shopper experience from store to digital.
We are in the busiest holiday season of the year, and brands have dialled into their prize promotions and in-store presence. As Halloween comes to a close, with the winter holidays on the horizon and Christmas soon to come, many brands have started to enhance their product offerings in supermarkets – including Christmas prize promotions, festive Christmas re-packaging, and stand-out promotional material in stores and on shelves.
Promotional materials in-store
Digital Screens
POS Displays
Tesco text-to-win (TTW or T2W)
Festive re-packaging
Holland & Barrett
On-pack promotions
Benecol
Cadbury Care
Green Giant
J2O
Jam Shed
Kinder Bueno
PROPER Snacks
Quaker
Richmond
Rockstar
Rubicon
Rustlers
Tesco has been using the digital billboard format both inside and outside their stores for a few years now in high-traffic areas. Often they can be spotted near the entrance and at the end-cap area of aisles, prime locations to capture shopper attention.
According to Retail Adverts, the cost of advertising on the digital screens seen at supermarkets can vary “from £800 to £1,200 per screen, per two weeks.” The final cost largely depends on several factors, such as time of year, frequency, duration, etc…
Whilst installing digital screens in stores may initially feel like a big compromise and be more expensive over traditional POS displays, these digital screens allow Tesco to feature more brands and advertising on a carousel and make changes to the screens remotely and with ease.
While the screens at the endcap of the aisle can take up a significant amount of valuable retail space, we’ll likely see more innovation going forward in retail media and may see digital screens with mid-aisle placement and smaller sizing available to be more space-efficient.
Many aisle fins were seen in-store, mostly advertising specific products, brands, Tesco Clubcard Prices, and prize promotions. There were also a few shelf-wobblers – mostly in the drinks aisles.
Shelf wobblers are a more compact, yet impactful way to highlight products on the shelf to stand out against competitors in the same aisle.
Several seasonal FSDUs were spotted in-store for various brands. In confectionery, Lindt chocolates displays the Diwali festival and also their Teddy Advent Calendars.
In the alcohol aisle, one that stood out was wine brand 19 Crimes’ Halloween repackaging, which replaced the infamous historical figures on the label (whose stories you can learn more about in 19 Crimes’ augmented reality experience), with iconic monsters. The Halloween packaging includes its own AR experience and glow-in-the-dark labels featuring fictional monsters: “The Bride of Frankenstein”, “The Mummy”, and “Frankenstein”.
There were several brand shelf takeovers in-store. We noticed shelf takeovers from some brands from several months go that are still in place today, and some have even grown.
With a partial takeover for their brand’s 100-year anniversary, Green Giant also implemented aisle fins alongside custom shelf tags to stand out in the tinned vegetables shelves.
Patak's and Old El Paso have kept up their brand takeovers in the World Food aisle, highlighting their products boldly with overhead signs and aisle fins, defining their section on the shelf with their brand colours and sturdy metal frames.
Much like Patak's added aisle fins on their takeover, Guinness is using a strong combination of aisle fins, overhead signage and framed borders.
Most shelf-ready packaging (SRPs) used by brands follows a generic branding, with the occasional promotion-specific SRP for on-pack promotions. The main purpose is to highlight the promotion with the on-shelf box in case shoppers miss the promotional packaging.
For the drinks aisles, particularly in the health-based drinks section, Tesco has included various display boxes with the product names and brief explanations on each type of drink. Display boxes make for a great way to break up the space on shelves and highlight products with an engaging and uncommonly seen type of promotional display.
Tesco often has dozens of TTW promotions available for entry at tesco.com/zones/tesco-competitions. These promotions are often a favoured promotional mechanic by participants and compers for their ease of entry.
These Tesco text-to-win promotions often have various brand names attached; “The Promoter” for these promotions is almost always Tesco themselves. The ‘hero brand’ is often credited as “The Supplier” and jointly referred to as the “Promotion Entities” in the terms and conditions of the partnership promotion.
Exclusive to Tesco, the text-to-wins are sometimes then advertised in-store through their point-of-sale displays, mostly via free-standing display units or aisle fins. Some examples the insights team found were “Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut Text to Win” and “Tropicana Text to Win”, which were both featured in-store through aisle fins including simple entry instructions and highlighted as “Only at Tesco”.
As you may have noticed with some brands mentioned previously, many have also changed or adapted their old packaging for the holidays, including Halloween and Christmas. Seasonal editions are a fun and creative way to capture attention with limited seasonal designs, flavours or updates to the products and brands shoppers already love.
Also featured in-store was a mini Holland & Barrett store featuring their own products and checkout area. The area was emphasised with large overhead signage, a digital screen and branded construction.
This partnership is a great opportunity to improve foot traffic and sales between both retailers. With Holland & Barrett being a reputable brand in the health & wellness space, the in-store mini-outlet presents more opportunity for both retailers. A shopper who goes into Tesco to buy something from their H&B outlet may also pick up a few items from the Tesco shelves, making it a mutually beneficial endeavour for both the retailers.
Celebrating 30 years of the brand since their start in 1995, Benecol has hit store shelves with their on-pack promotions, inviting shoppers to enter their weekly prize draw promotion (for their UK participants) and grand prize draws (for both UK and ROI).
The prizes include various e-vouchers for brands mostly to do with health and wellness and, for the grand prizes, cash. (4 x £1,995 cash prizes payable by BACS transfer for UK residents and 1 x €2,383.57 cash prize for residents of ROI). To round-off the promotion,
The promotion uses a form which includes fields for personal details and receipt upload for entry and proof of purchase validation. This is hosted on their microsite, benecolbirthday.co.uk.
Cadbury is partnering with BBC Children in Need for this on-pack campaign. The chocolate brand has turned some of their share bags into ‘Care bags’ and plans to donate £150,000 from the sales of the limited edition care bags to BBC’s Children in Need this year.
Celebrating 100 years in the industry, Green Giant has launched their on-pack promotion in stores with supporting point-of-sale materials. For this promotion in particular, shoppers who buy their promotional pack from Tesco will be entered into a Tesco-exclusive prize draw as well as the main promotion.
Prizes for both the draws and instant-win portions are cash, with 250 instant-win prizes and 2 prize draws (including Tesco’s exclusive draw). The instant win “winning moments” are open, meaning it’s the first person who enters the promotion once the winning moment begins that gets the prize – if nobody enters before that winning moment ends, then the prize will roll over to the next winning moment. This means, in the next winning moment, there will be 2 prizes available to win and 2 possible winners within that winning moment.
The promotion is hosted on the microsite 100-years-of-green-giant.com, where a secure entry process takes place. Participants first confirm their mobile number with an OTP code, then enter their details and receipt for validation and entry. If the entrant is an instant win/winning moments winner, they are directed to a page to submit their bank details to claim their cash prize. However, if the entrant is not an instant winner, they’re still entered into the prize draw portion of the promotion for the chance to win.
At the end of the entry, participants are also given the choice to play Green Giant’s memory card game. For every correctly matched card, a pop-up with a fact about the brand will be revealed.
The ‘Summer Hangouts’ promotion by J2O is an on-pack promotion seen on their cans and bottles. It was a weekly prize draw promotion which is now in its wrap-up period, with the main portion of the promotion ending in late September.
There were 25 prizes to win (1 x £1,500 Airbnb eGift card + £500 cash). 24 of which were distributed in the weekly draws and 1 reserved for the mop-up draw and late entrants.
Hosted on the promotional website, win.j2o.co.uk, this promotion has a simple entry form where participants can enter their details and upload a picture of their receipt for purchase validation. A slight issue we encountered during our investigation was the cform field clipping once we had uploaded an image. This issue is only seen in our mobile experience of the website, whilst the desktop had no issues with clipped fields. Besides this visual error, there were no other technical issues with the promotion and no issues with entry.
Wine brand Jam Shed’s “Jammy Drop” promotion is a free-to-enter instant win promotion, supported and advertised with promotional packs as an on-pack promotion.
The instant win mechanic uses open winning moments with prizes that roll over. In total, there are 25,161 instant win prizes. 161 cash prizes (transferred via PayPal) and 25,000 £1 money-off coupons for Jam Shed wines.
The promotion is hosted at thejammydrop.co.uk. After filling in a few details and answering some questions in the initial form, participants are taken to the instant win page where they can play a pinball-style game where their prize is revealed through the gamification. If the participants have won, they will be taken to a claim page to claim their prize.
“Win Big with Bueno!” is an instant win and on-pack promotion by Kinder. The promotion is hosted on a promotional page on Kinder’s brand website at the URL kinder.com/uk/en/xp/winbigwithbueno.
To verify purchase, unique alphanumeric codes have been printed on the inside of each sleeve of Kinder Bueno, which allows for instant purchase verification rather than the manual review usually required for receipt validation – making the overall promotion feel more ‘instant’ and frictionless for the participants.
PROPER Snacks’ “Mana-Feasting” promotion is an on-pack promotion which utilises both instant win and prize draw promotional mechanics. The prize draw distributes the grand prize (1 x 7-night holiday to the Maldives for the winner and a guest), and the instant win prizes include 99 x “Wellness bundles” and 2,601 x £2 coupons for money-off PROPER snacks. Large prize pools like this ensure that as many shoppers as possible get the chance to win something for their participation in the promotion.
Found on the promotional microsite practicepropersnacking.com, this promotion starts with a narrated portion from the fictitious and cleverly named meditation guide, “Zea Mays”. In the following section there are several witty and punny affirmations which participants can shuffle and choose to recite and record – making for a great way to gather UGC for this campaign. Entrants will then be shown a win/lose page after they submit a few personal details.
Hosted on the always-on promotional website, joy.pepsico.eu, this promotion by Quakers is a partnership with Team GB as one of their official brand partners. The on-pack promotion is a prize draw which offers various Team GB merchandise and, as the grand prize, 3 trips for two to the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 (one in Cortina, two in Milan).
For those who have already created an account for JOY by PepsiCo, the entry process is quick and easy. From a registered and logged-in account, entrants can participate at joy-pepsico.eu/en-gb/promotions/quaker/teamgb and enter their unique 12-digit code found on top of the pack to be entered into the draw without further need to submit personal details.
“Goodtimes Getaway” is Richmond’s on-pack instant win and prize draw promotion. The instant win mechanic uses open winning moments with prizes that roll over to ensure all prizes are given away fairly.
In total, there are 5005 prizes to be won in the promotion. 5 of which are the grand prizes, won via the prize draw (£6,000 TravelCard by Inspire + £750 spending money); and the instant win prizes, which consist of Richmond-branded holiday merchandise (250 x Richmond Sausage Lilos and 250 x Richmond Sausage Neck Pillows).
Available at the promotional page on their website at the URL richmondsausages.co.uk/goodtimesgetaway, the entry process uses a simple form to gather participant details and for purchase validation requires the batch code and a photo of the promotional pack (with the batch code visible).
Once those details are submitted, an animation plays which reveals whether the entrant has won an instant win prize or not.
This promotion by Rockstar Energy Drink is another on-pack promotion hosted on JOY PepsiCo, the always-on promotional website.
In total, there are 61 prizes available over the promotion. In the main period, there are 60 pairs of tickets to various music festivals to be won, and in the wrap-up portion of the promotion, 1 prize of £500 is available to be won.
After logging in or creating an account on JOY by PepsiCo, participants simply need to go to the page at joy-pepsico.eu/en-gb/brands/rockstar/festivals and enter the batch code found on the bottom of their promotional can.
When our insights team first attempted our entry, we encountered issues with the code. Having contacted the customer service team, an alternative code was provided for entry, and we were able to make an entry into the promotion with no further issue.
For Rubicon’s energy drinks line, Rubicon Raw, we spotted promotional packs in-store for their Ski Festival promotion. The promotion combines open winning moments and prize draw mechanics to determine winners but predominantly uses the instant win mechanic to decide winners for all prizes apart from the grand prize, which is a common methodology in many instant-win prize draws. In total, there are 202 prizes to be won in the promotion. 201 through the instant win, consisting of various ‘fitness and outdoorsy’ prizes, and 1 through the prize draw, giving away a VIP package for 2 adults to Snowbombing 2026 in Austria.
The promotion’s microsite, available at vipwinrubiconraw.co.uk, is a simple single form where participants can enter their details and the batch code of their promotional can for entry and verification. Once the page is submitted, entrants are taken to a win/lose page and automatically entered into the grand prize draw if they haven’t won. If they have won, winning entrants will need to follow the instructions on-screen to redeem their prize.
Rustler’s “Big Night In Bundle” promotion is an on-pack promotion which uses prize draw mechanics to select winners. There’s a main promotion period and a wrap-up period for late entrants.
In total, there are 102 prizes to be won – 17 for each participating retailer (Tesco, Morrisons, Co-op, Sainsbury’s, ASDA, and “Other”). As part of the many prizes, there are £100 retailer gift cards. The gift card will correspond to the retailer where the promotional pack was purchased. If a winner selected "Other" as their retailer, they will be able to choose their preferred retailer from the five previously specified options.
From the on-pack, participants are directed to the promotional microsite, winwithrustlers.com, where participants can enter their details and upload a photo of their receipt.
In our initial attempt to enter the promotion, our receipt submission was not accepted – this could be due to the receipt robotics implemented in the promotion being unable to recognise or read the receipt.
Receipt robotics is a great way to automate the purchase validation process; however, there will be times when the AI may fail to accurately scan the details and will require manual review. For brands that want to use receipt robotics, consider implementing a ‘failsafe’ of sorts that automatically directs receipt uploads the AI was unable to identify to a manual reviewer for further investigation.
The Insights team then got in contact with customer service for this Rustlers promotion about this issue and had the receipt manually uploaded by their team.
To find out how your brand can improve and streamline your purchase validation processes in promotion, including running fail-safe receipt robotics, speak to one of our experts at no cost. Consider using the PromoNow platform. Speak with a platform consultant at +44 (0)20 380 555 38 or email hello@promo-now.com to learn more.
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