Engagement marketing: a practical example

It's tough to 'get' engagement marketing if you're used to selling interruptive stuff.
So, you may or may not find this useful; I heard a case today of a firm who did a deal with one part of my company to run a story in the magazine and on the website promoting their competition. You send your pic and some words in about your life with this particular product - and they choose the best ones and stick you in a ad campaign. Your prize? why fame of course.
Sounds almost like engagement marketing dunnit - almost UGAdvert...

But we can do better than that.

As an engagement marketing opportunity it might work a little more like this:

media company hosts a competition for users to generate their own version of the ad to the brief of the company concerned. Users upload their images and words to an interactive area. Other users comment on them, vote on them, share them. Most viewed/highest rated at end of campaign wins a prize.

Upside; loads of users think creatively about the product - consider what it means to them - and share this with the world. Engaged - oh yes.

Downside: Company concerned might here what people really think about their product. And it may not be all good. But even this offers an opportunity for dialogue and to learn from the community to perfect that product.

Want decent UGC? Try the same from an editorial perspective.

I'm not claiming I'm revealing anything new here - just hoping a concrete example might help.