Campaign toolkit

Competitions

Suitable for:

Medium to larger organisations.

How could it be used?

A contest related to Occupational Health & Safety (OSH) topics could run simultaneously with your campaign. It could be a photo or video competition or a competition on the best OSH gadget.

Benefits

  • The competition could be a great tool to support your campaign and reinforce your key messages.
  • Thanks to the competition you can create an interest in OSH-related topics among the general public.
  • Even young people may be interested in the subject. During EU-OSHA’s own Photo Competition in 2011 almost one thousand people sent their photos for consideration!

Limitations

  • This kind of competition requires an internal commitment from an organisation:
    • Engaging a wide audience
    • Preparing the selection procedure, etc.
    • Also, it may be cost-intensive if you consider offering a financial reward.

Who will take part?

  • Think about the target audience:
    • Do you want to involve general public?
    • Or specific groups (e.g. only workers, only youth)

Publicising the competition

  • Think how to reach the potential participants: consider using social media if the general public is involved.
  • Set up a competition webpage.

Winning criteria

  • Think of the precise criteria the participants have to fulfil in order to win the competition.
  • Choose the jury that will assess whether participants fulfil these criteria:
    • Try to involve a well-known person to represent this panel e.g. a reputable professional photographer in the case of a photo competition.

Rules and selection procedure

  • Prepare a selection procedure: if you run a sub-site devoted to the competition you may upload an entry form there.
  • Make sure the rules are clear and precise and all entry forms understandable.
  • If you expect a large number of participants, consider splitting the selection procedure into two stages:
    • Pre-selection
    • Final selection.

Timelines

  • In terms of timelines, organise the competition simultaneously with the campaign.
  • The final event could be connected with the closing event of the campaign.

Publicity

  • Involve the media. Provide them with the pictures (if it is a photo competition) or other visual materials.
  • Arrange interviews either with competitors and jury.