Hello folks!
Thanks for being a regular reader of the Contest Junkie blog. I hope 2010 has been a fantastic year of winning for you and that 2011 will be an even better year!
This year I am marking the end of the year with a Contest Junkie Year End Round Up Post, to give credit to those who deserve it and also look back at some of the worst contests and companies I have ever seen.
Best Contest Organizer of The Year!
The award goes to.....
T.G.I. Friday's Singapore!
for being gutsy and doing the right thing to the best of their ability!
T.G.I. Friday's Singapore held a simple contest on their Facebook Page on the 7th December 2010. All they require contestants to do is to tell them what's our favorite part about the holidays. They will be randomly giving away $30 gift vouchers. And so, what some contestants try to do is to use their ghost accounts to join in the hope of increasing the chances of them winning the prize. A few contestants noticed that and notified T.G.I. Friday's Singapore.
After a whole year of seeing people cheat in FB contests and listening to crap excuses from companies who refuse to acknowledge that there is cheating activity going on and who refuse to take action against cheaters and hackers no matter how glaringly obvious it is, TGIF's gutsy reply and standing up against unsporting behavior comes as a breathe of fresh air to me.
Here's T.G.I. Friday's Singapore reply to the folks who tipped them off.
Thanks for the heads up! It's def not acceptable but if they really want to do it - shame on them! But seriously, we trust our fans and if there are bad people out there, then it's too bad for us.
Kudos T.G.I. Friday's Singapore! That was a gutsy comment and you earn my respect!
Website: http://www.fridays.com.sg
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/fridays.sg
Twitter Page: http://twitter.com/fridays_sg
Restaurant location: #01-K5, 260 Orchard Road, The Heeren, 238855 Singapore
Contact Number: +65.6737.4223
Operational Hours:
Sunday - Thursday : 11am to 12mn
Friday - Saturday : 11am - 2am
Join their mailing list, "like" their Facebook Page, subscribe to their Twitter Feeds, eat at their restaurant! Support them!
Best Prize of The Year!
A condominium at Oasis @ Elias!
Organized by AXS, you stand a chance to go into a draw to win the condominium if you use your DBS or POSB ATM card to pay your bills at either an AXS Station or POSB FastPay.
I think a unit at Oasis is worth about EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS.
If you win a condominium worth $800,00, it is almost as good as striking TOTO but better than that because you don't even have to spend money buying the lottery tickets. As I always say, gambling is bad, joining contests is better! And winning both the condominium and Toto is impossible!... NOT! Haha.
So did the contest make you switch your paying mode to AXS? I'm wonder how effective it is to get people to switch to paying by AXS through a contest like this. Well, I was motivated to switch and it was only made possible because there's an AXS station near to where I stay. I've clocked 8 chances only though. How many chances did you all clock?
Most Creative Contest of The Year!
Heineken Formula Chair Competition!
If it's not a photo competition, it will be a SMS, blogging, essay writing, online game, voting, or simply submit your details for a chance to win. It gets boring after a while and when the Heineken Formula Chair competition came along, I was so tickled!
It was good fun. We get to participate in a fun challenge and bond with friends at the same time. You get to fool around in wheels. It's not a like or voting contest and people can't cheat. The judging criteria is simply the best team wins.
I wish we have more of such fun contests next year!
Discover Japan via Haneda Airport, Tokyo contest gets reader C.S.'s vote for being a contest that he liked.
I searched through my archives and realized that I didn't managed to post this contest, so I'm not sure what the mechanics are like. In any case, itinerary planning contests or in fact any contests that involves using creativity and where the entry is judged by the organizers and not by votes are good contests and worth joining. I also think itinerary planning contests are a great way to meet marketing objectives as well. I just wish I have more time to join them! =)
CS, I don't know if you won, but if you did congratulations, well done and rock on! : )
Worst Contests of the Year!
There are TOO many to be listed actually. Haha. What I think really irked us to no end this year was the proliferation of "voting" contests. Every ill-informed and new-to-social-media company was blindly jumping onto the bandwagon and there are so many times that I saw the repercussions exploded right in their face. I have no sympathies for such companies if they had been too lazy to do research. Is it so hard to google for "Should I hold a voting contest?" and try to investigate more? My link to views and thoughts about voting contests is the second resource listed on google. Likewise, just search for Online Voting Contest and see what gets thrown up. I bet you can't find a link that praises the ingenuity or fun factor of voting contests.
What really takes the cake as the worst contest of the year is the Chic Magazine Snap-A-Taxi Contest. Enough has been written about it so there's no need to repeat the whole grandmother story again. Their blatant disregard for transparency, fairness and accountability is absolutely shocking. Winners are not announced. Photographs of entries or the winner are not shown and we are talking about a $10,000 cash prize. After that, there are some people who emailed me and others posted comments about other contests held by Chic where prizes were not given out with a good enough explanation and also of undesirable business practices. Chic Magazine had also relentlessly held voting contests. What kind of company are they, I think it is clear for everyone to see.
An Anon thinks Cheers' Think Fast Challenge is the worst and I agree that the contest is a strong contender for the Worst Contest of the Year. And they don't learn! After receiving loads of criticisms for the first installment of the contest, they held the same contest in the exact same format again! Despite how glaringly obvious that high scores can't be reach, Cheers insisted that checks are in place and all is above board. They definitely also deserve the title of being the most delusional company who thinks that everything is working fine when it is clearly not.
Despite all the lousy contests that totally riled us up, let's not forget that there are still good companies around and fun contests we participated and won. I look forward to things getting better next year with more contests and good challenges.
For those who had a bountiful year, a big congratulations to you. For those who didn't win as much, here's wishing that the upcoming year of the Rabbit will bring you lots of luck!
Thank you for being a part of the Contest Junkie blog. Thank you to those who shared your views on which are the best and worst contests of 2010 to you.
Happy New Year folks and may 2011 bring you lots of luck, plenty of joy, a bountiful harvest, abundant prosperity and endless happiness!
HUAT AH!
