Summer is hot. As are some of the contests this season.

Concerts, chips, cash – everything’s up for grabs. Check out our cross-country panel’s picks for winning contests that may even have you filling out a ballot or two.

Ring my bell

‘Global’s Calling'[contest by Toronto-based Capital C] is designed to get people watching the [station’s] prime-time lineup. This is typically a slow time for TV viewing and their integration of a street/event team traveling to summer events and an online component, hinging it all on viewers identifying an on-air code word brings the campaign full circle. Consumers …ultimately have to watch Global in order to win the $10,000 prize. I bet the summer advertisers on Global are loving it too.

David Nichols, SVP & founder, Inventa, Vancouver

Green with envy

Garnier offers a winner and three friends the chance to win the ultimate VIP Concert Experience. This promotion [created by House of Blues] fits the brand’s entertainment marketing strategy like a glove and is a bull’s-eye for its core psychographic segment. The added value of having product placement and interactive makeovers backstage is a perfect tie-in. And Garnier’s green bottle has become an on-shelf marquee icon extending the brand seamlessly into the ‘Green Room Experience.’

Jonathan Singer, Jonathan Singer Experience Marketing, Montreal

You’re SO spotted

Pepsi’s Get Spotted effort [by BBDO Toronto] caught my attention [because it] effectively marries contest and street-level tactics. The bored, yet festive, gang of Pepsi Spotters showing up out of nowhere and performing ridiculously understated congratulations via megaphone and uninspired toss of confetti [in TV spots] is hilarious. It’s not an entirely original concept, but it conveys how it works in a slacker-sense-of-humour kind of way. Good stuff.

Joel Parent, director, interactive business development, IC Group, Mississauga, Ont.