A brand is dead in the water if it doesn’t create opportunities for consumers to directly interact. Often, brands activate their communities through competitions, ranging from dance challenges to coming up with the newest flavor of snacks. Such competition marketing is a field all its own, providing digital marketers an opportunity to foster a superior engagement with customers. For example, in 2017 Lay’s held its “DoUsAFlavor” competition awarding $1 million to the best idea for a new Lay’s potato chip flavor. This type of marketing is being increasingly used by brands across social media.
OnFlick provides a centralized mobile and desktop platform where brands can sponsor and run competition-based campaigns to build customer loyalty. The company also offers a photo-sharing app which allows users to participate in daily contests and competitions.
In this interview, Daniel Olatunde, co-founder and CEO of OnFlick, spoke about the competition marketing niche and fighting for capital in the tech space as a black entrepreneur.
BLACK ENTERPRISE: How is OnFlick a disruptive social media platform?
Olatunde: Social media has unfortunately made most people anti-social and less interactive with members of their society such as neighbors, co-workers, co-passengers on a flight, and more importantly people within their communities who need help and support. OnFlick is the first social media app with an “off” switch where we actually shut down the app for about six hours when the 1st of the month falls on a Saturday so our users can “get social” by carrying out an act of charity in their community. Then they come back and post a footage of that in our MissiOnFlick contest, for a chance to win a prize for their cause.
Why is the competition feature so integral to OnFlick’s mission?
Competition drives the human nature. Everyone loves to see who wins on the sports field, classroom, or in the boardroom, and it is the most unbiased way to give users cash, cool prizes, and other incentives.
Describe the process of app development
My team worked meticulously for several months maniacally focused on making the user experience the center focus of our requirement gathering, design, and development. What was most important to us is to showcase the importance of a social media platform where you spend quality time at the most important place, affording the user an opportunity to engage with brands and influencers in a mutually beneficial manner. In addition, we invited beta testers to try the app and give us feedback which was very helpful in subsequent iterations.
Why do you feel that competition marketing is an untapped niche in the digital advertising market?
Competition marketing is providing digital marketers an opportunity to engage users by having them gamify their content – photos, videos, and texts, to win cash and cool prizes while fostering a superior engagement with the brand. Another important factor is transparency. Many contests run today vaguely show the transparency and entire process behind selecting winners because these competitions are ran by the brands themselves and the audience are asked to repost — get the most likes to win.
OnFlick is an unbiased platform as it has no affiliations with brands exclusively. This offers brands a transparent and huge return on their investments, and every user a fair chance to win.
The tech space is still relatively untapped by black people. Was there any difficulty in finding or investment? If not, do you anticipate difficulty down the road?
We have been mostly bootstrapped and while we do believe there are steeper challenges for black entrepreneurs in raising funding, we believe that our traction, team, and unique value proposition will help us secure funding in the coming months.
Are there any ideal brands or organizations you think OnFlick will work best with? If so, why?
The ideal brands for OnFlick are those intending, or already engaging with millennials such as Adidas, Nike, Express, Pepsi, Coca-Cola and Red Bull, Monster, Scholly etc. Our primary demographics will be millennials mostly those of college age, and these brands will best serve them.
OnFlick isn’t just for major brands. Any company can register for free in the Apple Store and mobilize their consumer base, using the healthiest motivational tactic of them all — competition.