2024 was a big year for successful prizes and promotions over here at Prizeshark and as we often do, we wanted to share our wisdom and expertise with you so you can understand how our business is in helping your business grow.

Prizes are a wonderful way to reward customers, create dependable employees and deepen relationships with other businesses that support you and your endeavours. By offering prizes throughout promotional campaigns or as part of competitions you encourage your customers to reach out and engage with your business, which increases the frequency of interactions as well as providing sources of positive emotional connection to your business in the form of said prizes. 

The prize is the incentive, the reason a customer will approach your campaign, and whatever the campaign or promotion intends to do, (increase sales, get more rewards scheme sign-ups, or highlight a particular product,) prizes are the essential foundation that can drive the success or failure of your campaign. 

So, throughout 2024 we sourced prizes and planned and managed promotions, what prizes came out on top in 2024? Read on to find out.

Top Prizes of 2024 and Why They Worked

Customer engagement campaigns top prizes of 2024 have a thematic connection that allowed each one of them to successfully drive our campaigns, satisfy our customers and develop deeper brand loyalty and engagement for each one of our clients that we serviced. As we explore each of these prizes, let us see if you can spot the thematic connection. Don’t worry if you don’t, we’ll explore it in more detail in the next section. 

1. Eco-friendly Gadgets: Looking after the environment is close to many people’s hearts in the modern day, from a marked increase in veganism and plant-based diets to a deeper awareness of the sources of climate problems and a desire to do what they can to help out, people everywhere are supporting eco-friendly businesses and that also means they are loving eco-friendly prizes. These work because they speak to a person’s sensibilities, outlooks, and beliefs, they align with people’s values and so show your customers that you feel the same as they do. Eco-friendly gadgets are both practical and sustainable, with many being manufactured from bamboo or other sustainable materials and having a reusable feature that makes eco-friendly gadgets a top pick.

Examples: Bamboo water bottles, Reusable Notebooks, Biodegradable Phone Cases, Rechargeable Batteries, House of Marley Bluetooth Speakers

1. Branded Drinkware: There is never a time in a person’s life when a container to drink from wouldn’t be useful. Especially good for employees as it provides and encourages them to drink throughout the work day, and a hydrated employee will be a happy and functional employee! But in terms of prizes in general, a branded drinkware container provides practical usages and is one of the most popular and most used prizes of this variety, and the branding on the side is a marketer’s dream, with over 57% of people reporting to remember a brand based off of a drinks container they frequently use than they are from a classic advert or campaign. It is the constancy of use that makes this an effective prize, your customers will always need one, and if you make it high-quality and eco-friendly you can ensure your brand is seen day in and day out and not forgotten. 

1. Custom Apparel: Clothing isn’t optional, and it can often be quite expensive. So offering various forms of apparel as prizes can be a real draw for many people, especially if that apparel is of a nice high quality or has a particularly attractive design. Custom apparel can refer to personalization on behalf of the recipient but most often falls into the category of customization on behalf of the brand, which then allows for a wonderful synergy of prize and promotion to weave together and enhance your brand. Customer apparel becomes a kind of uniform, a mark of belonging to a group, to your business and your brand. It shows support, and that support speaks volumes to other potential customers, as well as provides free mobile advertising when the recipient wears it. 

Examples: Hoodies, Caps, Wrist Bands, Scarves, Shorts, Socks, Gloves, Shoes

1. Health and Wellness Products: Another value-based prize which is still popular thanks to the popularity of health and wellness. Going to the gym and being active has very much been a growing trend, and whilst the physical side of the trend seems to have plateaued, there has been a greater shift towards mental health alongside physical health and wellness. And so, customers are looking for businesses and products that align with these values and can help support them in their wellness journey. By offering self-care kits, activity days, fitness trackers or aromatherapy kits, you can help the prize winners take care of themselves.

1. Examples: Branded Fitness Bands, Desk-friendly Stress Relievers, Branded Yoga Mats, Pill Organisers for Vitamins and Supplements, Herbal Teas, Aromatherapy Sets

1. Reusable Tote Bags: Tote bags are excellent. They’re simple to make, lightweight, and easy to store and fold when not being used. Large enough to chuck books, files and folders into, whilst being discrete and unencumbering when being carried, it’s no wonder tote bags have become a go-to carry solution for many people. Demographically tote bags tend to be more popular with women, but they are something anyone and everyone can use, and when branded they can provide ample free marketing whilst helping the prize winners to carry their daily loads. The point is that you can never have too many bags, whether people use them for every day, as sports bags for gym clothes or as shopping bags for their weekly shop, everyone can appreciate a tote bag and nearly everyone has a use for them, making them one of 2024’s top five popular prizes.

Lessons Learned: Choosing the Right Prizes

So, have you spotted what ties all of these prizes together yet? There are three things actually, and these make up the foundation of a great prize that benefits both the recipient and your business. 

Personalisation, Branding and Utility. These three ingredients make a prize what it is and are the key takeaway lesson of 2024. 

Customers want items that can be made their own, whether that’s embossed with their initials, in their favourite colour, or their favourite style, they want to feel like the prize is uniquely theirs and for them. But this is difficult to achieve when running lots of promotions or intending for many prize recipients, so we manage what we can to ensure customisation is available for the prize winners.

The next important ingredient is branding, this may seem less likely to be important in the receiving of prizes but branding does two important things. It helps your customers to feel a part of your brand, a part of your business, it gives them a sense of identity to belong to, a cause to get behind. And that in turn provides ample brand advocacy and word-of-mouth marketing and cements your brand’s name and logo in the mind of the prize winner.

And finally, the prize should be useful to the winner, in this way it provides real value to their life, making it a part of their daily routine. By being useful the prize is interacted with constantly, the customisation and sense of personal belonging are reinforced, and the constant exposure to the brand deepens that identity, develops customer loyalty, and ties the prize together in the mind of the winner as a positive association with your business. And that can only mean good things. 

What Makes a Prize Campaign Successful?

A solid campaign is made successful both by its ability to draw the target audience in, and its ability to remain in the minds of participants and prize winners for months or years to come. 

First, we develop by understanding our audience, our goals, and the time of year the promotion will be run, so we can craft a perfectly themed promotion that gets into the minds and lives of customers and makes them aware of and desirous of participating in your promotion.

Second, we achieve by creating the right kind of prizes that your winners will love, highlighting or supporting the main aims of the campaign, and further cementing your brand and business as one that provides positive experiences to your customers.

By utilising the best and most popular prizes of 2024 and learning the lessons of customisation, branding, and utility, we can be better poised to develop and execute excellent promotions throughout 2025 and the years to come. 

Prizeshark rewards marketing strategies are among the most effective prize-based campaigns in the industry. To explore how Prizeshark can help you design impactful trends in prize campaigns for 2025. Contact us today!