Results Data: Crest Toothpaste Tests TV-to-Web Contest Campaign to Involve Consumers.

When Procter & Gamble launched Crest's new toothpaste flavor on the reality show The Apprentice -- the two teams were tasked with "getting the city talking" about Vanilla Mint Crest -- the company knew viewers would be thinking about their brand in more depth than if the company had simply run a toothpaste commercial.

With millions of consumers already thinking about the marketing of the toothpaste, P&G marketers wondered if they could take that involvement one step further, getting consumers out of their seats to actually engage with the brand.

Working with interactive promotion agency ePrize, the team came up with an online component of the campaign: immediately following the show, a commercial ran in which viewers were asked to go to Crest.com and explain, in 100 words or less, how they would have completed the marketing task given to the Apprentice teams. The online promotion element included a tell-a-friend component, and each person who entered was provided a free sample of the Vanilla Mint toothpaste.

The winner of the essay contest won a trip to the final Apprentice episode.

"With a TV spot, maybe [consumers] watch it, or maybe not," says Josh Linkner, CEO of ePrize. But by getting consumers off the couch and to a computer to actively think about the product, "you're more deeply immersing the consumer with the brand."

In total, the campaign led to more than 4.7 million visits to the product Web site, and 40,000 people actually submitted marketing ideas.

How did the Crest team make the most of the reality show sponsorship, guaranteeing that the online promotion would be a hit? Linkner shared his tactics for making online promotions a success.