Get your customers filming: the video competition that livens up your shop

All you need is a QR code, a product to win and a moment on Monday to choose. The rest is a few simple rules: in Belgium, a competition has to fit within a precise legal framework, and the fact that someone filmed a video doesn't give you the right to publish it.

Why a customer's video rings truer

When you film your shop yourself, it's advertising, however good it is. When a customer films it, it's a testimonial: their table, their laugh, their reaction to the first bite. They film what you can't film from behind your counter.

TikTok says so itself to its advertisers: in its tips for effective ads (TikTok Ads Manager help centre), it recommends showing people, whether creators, employees or customers. And the audience is there: in Belgium, 4 in 10 adults are on TikTok (DataReportal, Digital 2026 Belgium: 4.03 million, 42.5% of over-18s).

The competition in one sentence

Every week, the best video shot at your place by a customer wins one of your products, handed over on the spot.

1. Choose the prize. One of your own products, something people can see: a cone of chips with a frikandel, brunch for two, a haircut, the Friday bouquet. Never cash, never a vague voucher. Take a photo of it for the table card.
2. Put the QR codes where the moment happens. On the tables, at the counter, on the shop window, by the salon mirror. The QR code leads to a page where customers send their video from their phone, without installing an app, with the rules and the consent boxes just before they send it.
3. The customer films their moment. Ten to twenty seconds, in portrait. Their dish, their haircut, their drink, not the whole room.
4. Every Monday, pick the winning video. Watch the week's videos, keep the best three, choose according to the criteria you announced, let the winner know and hand over the prize when they come in.

One prize a week, however many people take part: the cost is fixed and known in advance. For the upload page, you need an online form that accepts videos and keeps a record of consent. That's what the Customer videos section of Hopla! Pro does, if you'd rather not set it up yourself.

Five rules for a fair competition

1. On merit, never by chance. You choose according to criteria written down in advance: the video that makes people most want to come in, sharp, in portrait, with the product clearly visible. No prize draw.
2. Three videos in the final. You keep the week's best three and choose between them. Not by view count: that favours people with lots of followers, and it can be gamed.
3. One win per person per month. The competition rewards your customers, not one regular who wins every Monday.
4. No winner with fewer than five entries in the week. The prize rolls over to the following week. Put that in the rules from the start.
5. The prize is something you can see. “Brunch for two” is more tempting than a voucher, and it's handed over in person.

What Belgian law says

What follows is a summary, not legal advice. Have your rules checked by a lawyer before you launch: the templates you find online are often written for another country.

• Lotteries are banned in principle. The Act of 31 December 1851 on lotteries covers operations offered to the public to provide a gain by way of chance.
• Chance, even incidental, changes everything. The Act of 7 May 1999 on games of chance applies as soon as chance plays a part, even an incidental one, in choosing the winner. Hence the rule: no prize draw, and no settling a tie between two videos by chance.
• A competition is allowed because it rests on skill: merit decides the winner, as the Liège-Huy Bar (Barreau de Liège-Huy) explains in an article on business competitions.
• An announced prize must be awarded. Announcing a competition without awarding the prizes described is an unfair commercial practice (Article VI.100, 19°, of the Code of Economic Law). As soon as the week has five entries, name a winner.
• On Facebook, you may not require people to share a post or tag friends in order to take part, the same Liège-Huy Bar article points out.
• No link with Google reviews. Offering a benefit in exchange for a review is against Google's rules. The competition rewards a video, nothing else: never link it to a review, not in the rules and not at the counter.

Image rights, minors and phone numbers

• Filming and publishing are two separate consents. The Data Protection Authority makes the point: agreeing to be filmed doesn't mean agreeing to the footage being shared. And according to the FPS Economy, such consent is to be read restrictively. Ask explicitly for consent to publish on your social media.
• In writing, so you can prove it. Writing isn't compulsory, but the Data Protection Authority recommends it. A box to tick before sending is enough.
• Other people in the shot count too: the recognisable customer at the next table, your team behind the counter. Article XI.174 of the Code of Economic Law prohibits publishing someone's portrait without their consent. Ask entrants to film their moment, not the room.
• Minors. According to the FPS Economy, you need the parents' consent, plus the minor's own as soon as they're old enough to understand. The simplest option: open the competition only to people aged sixteen and over.
• The phone number is there to let the winner know, and for nothing else. Say so on the page, don't use it for marketing, and delete it at the end of the competition. And if an entrant changes their mind, take their video down.

Reusing the videos on your TikTok

With consent to publish, the videos you receive can live on your own account.

• Post the winning video every Monday, with simple on-screen text: “Video of the week”. It also shows other customers that the competition exists.
• Open on the best moment. The chip dipped in the sauce, the mirror turning round. TikTok advises its advertisers to get the essentials across in the first three seconds.
• Watch out for the music. If the shop radio can be heard, replace the sound: TikTok business accounts have access to a commercial music library of one million tracks cleared in advance for businesses (TikTok Ads Manager help centre).
• Thank them by first name, if the person is happy to be named. Otherwise, “Thanks to our customer of the week” is enough.
• Keep the good ones that didn't win: a great shot can open one of your own videos. Take it out if the person asks you to.

For the formats that work in your trade, read our article on TikTok for a local shop.

The 2027 survival guide for local shops has a chapter on customers who film, rules included. It's free (in French).