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GE strives to match desktop interactivity on mobile

While General Electric's latest sweepstakes is running across both desktop and mobile, the experience for the latter is not as robust, a discrepancy the company hopes to address in future campaigns.

The contest is running until Jan. 7 and invites consumers to find the Artistry brand?s mascot, Artie the Dalmatian, on GEappliances.com for a chance at winning prizes. Consumers can enter via mobile, but the mobile site does not reflect the interactive scavenger hunt that the desktop counterpart provides.

?Generally speaking we try to make sure that everything is as much mobile optimized as possible although in this particular instance just because of the way it was designed it didn?t work on our mobile properties, so we had a way of getting around it to allow people on mobile to still enter on their devices,? said Matthew Sandercock, program manager on the consumer digitization team at GE Appliances, Louisville, KY.

?Future sweepstakes will be available at a better experience on mobile than the current Artie sweepstakes is today,? he said.

Find Artie
Consumers can participate via desktop or mobile to enter the Find Artie contest.

On mobile, consumers simply enter their personal information on a mobile-optimized site to receive one entry into that week?s drawing and the grand prize drawing. Consumers can earn an extra entry by sharing via Twitter or Facebook.

Via desktop, the contest is a bit more interactive. Consumers have to find Artie on various pages on GE?s Web site, following clues.

Once they find him and click on the image, they will have to answer a question such as, ?How do you tell the time on the Artistry Range?? Consumers have to select the correct answer to earn an entry.

Artie is hidden in 12 different places on the site, so consumers can earn up to 12 entries via the desktop site.

Consumers must be at least 18 years old and residents of the United States to enter. Consumers can submit entries once per day, regardless if it is on mobile or desktop.

In total there will be 10 weekly drawings and one grand prize drawing. The weekly winner will receive a $250 gift card from Amazon, Apple or Visa.

The grand prize will consist of a check for $5,000, a GE Artistry refrigerator, dishwasher, microwave oven and a choice between a free-standing electric range or a free-standing gas range.

?The idea behind that was to get people introduced to the new GE Artistry suite of appliances,? Mr. Sandercock said.

?We just wanted to do that in a way that was fun and engaging and also to get people to go to the Web site so they could learn more about the series as well as enter the competition,? he said. ?It was a fun way to get people exposed to the new products.?

Mobile-first
In 2013, GE Appliances adopted a mobile-first mantra for almost of all its projects.

The company was even one of the early adopters of mobile social platforms such as Vine and Instagram, rolling out creative and engaging campaigns on the platforms (see story).

GE also launched a mobile and desktop experience that gets consumers in five cities to learn about technology, science and engineering through gaming and check-ins (see story).

Mr. Sandercock said that the Find Artie sweepstakes does not provide the same experience on mobile as it does on desktop, but the company could not create an interactive scavenger hunt on its current mobile site.

Looking forward, GE Appliances is rolling out more responsive pages in hopes of providing the best possible experience for all of its promotions regardless of device.

?We?re looking forward to the day where we don?t have any separation from the mobile and desktop site. It should all just be GEappliances.com and not be two separate entities.?

Final Take
Rebecca Borison is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York