The competitors in the Final Round of the 2011 March Mayhem were tense… who would take away the title of Best Resource for members of the Association of Corporate Counsel? Would it be the organization’s In-House Jobline that provided the best member benefit, or did ACC’s Annual Meeting rise to the top?

Echoing the NBA’s March Madness tournament playoffs, this spring ACC asked members to vote for their favorite resources and member benefits. Members could also fill out brackets that pitted 16 of the association’s member benefits against each other to see which resources garnered the most votes. Eight members with the best brackets won Aprizes such as gift certificates for ACC products, services and events — and the grand prize winner even received a basketball signed by the ACC staff.

All we can say is brilliant… simply brilliant. This case study is one of the best examples we’ve seen of ways to both engage members and showcase member benefits. ACC started the project in 2010, and members demanded its return in 2011. Because ACC released the results slowly over 10 days, they built up more and more excitement for the competition and engaged members over an extended period. In addition, the project engaged the staff at all levels and allowed the friendly competition to make everyone smile.

From an article about March Mayhem in Associations Now magazine:

ACC also created a video to promote the tournament, with staff playing the roles of various ACC resources and explaining their purpose. A cross-functional team worked on their own time to produce the video and make plans for the tournament. “When we did the videotaping, we kind of tried to do it all in one day, and the office was buzzing because people were really having a lot of fun with it. They couldn’t wait to get in and film their segment,” says [ACC Director of Membership Marketing Jim] Way. “And it just seemed like it was a big side benefit of the project that I didn’t anticipate, the actual enthusiasm and participation of our staff.”

It’s hard to top a voting March Mayhem tournament to determine the best association resources — but what other things have you heard about to engage members in an online voting event?