Walkers Crisps are celebrating their latest TV advert, that stars Lionel Richie, by giving you the chance to win £1000. They’re calling on all Walkers fans to help them create a ‘never-ending’ bag of crisps. To take part, all you have to do is record or upload a 10 second video of you getting a bag of Extra Crunchy from your right, taking a crisp and passing the bag to your left. To get you in the mood here’s the advert, with the best ever advert song!

There are two £1000 cash prizes and 4 Sony video cameras on offer!

The cash prizes will be awarded to the videos that feature either side of Lionel Richie in the final mashed up version of the “never ending bag of crisps video” whilst the camcorders go to the entrants with the funniest share, best fancy dress, most unusual location and most original share. Every video that gets into the final cut gets a bag of Extra Crunchy!

The good news is that Walkers are judging the entries so (at least as far as we can tell) there’s going to be no voting shenanigans in this competition! Hooray!

So is it worth entering?

Well yes – remember it’s only a 10 second clip (max) that you have to put together and the format is get crisps from left, eat crisp, pass on the bag to the right! Stick to that and you’re on your way. However, to make your entry stand out you’re going to have to be innovative. Remember location, humour and fancy dress can be used to your advantage so don’t worry if you’re not a movie making buff.

Oh yes, don’t forget to include the bag of Walkers Extra Crunchy Crisps when making your video.

Entries need to be uploaded to the Walkers Competition Site by 3pm on the 17th September so you have a week or so to think about your video idea. If you have a number of ideas then that’s great as you can make as many submissions as you like!

We’d love to see plenty of Loquax users in the final video so give it a try!

“Save one for me….”!

Yet another competition is embroiled in voting controversy over on Facebook! Over the summer Flip Video UK have been running a competition with a £3000 prize on offer. The competition has been in four stages. Step 1 was answer a few questions. Step 2 required votes.

Step 3 reduced entrants down to the 20 who got the most votes and they were tasked to create a video about their summer. The final part, Step 4, required people to vote for their favourite video and therefore pick the winner. People who voted had the chance to win a Flip Video.

However, controversy began to kick off when the number of votes being accumulated by two entrants raised eyebrows amongst other finalists. This has since boiled over at the start of September when a user spotted a number of ” faceless, non profiled accounts” voting for the entrants. There are also allegations of fake accounts being used to get other entrants disqualified.

Flip UK, to their credit, have posted on their wall and are investigating

We are working with Facebook to identify any fake accounts. You will appreciate it is very important that Facebook can prove beyond reasonable doubt that these accounts are indeed fraudulent before taking action. This takes some time and we are going to have to ask you to bear with us.

This isn’t going to be an easy task and whatever the result the competition has been tainted. Reading some of the comments on Facebook suggests the goodwill of some finalists has gone. This can’t be what they hoped to achieve when the competition kicked off.

Brands love voting competitions, especially via Facebook, as they can help create viral social media buzz which means more likes/followers/friends for them. Their brand is being splashed over walls, posted on forums by people begging for votes and tweeted across Twitter.

However, as we all know in the comping world voting competitions are notorious for controversy. People will do anything and everything it takes to win, including spamming forums and jumping on people when they login to Facebook via the chat facility! There are voting groups on Facebook – some open, others private.

Even if people are playing within the rules there’s always suspicious minds and conspiracy theories usually come into play!

We can only sit and wait to see what happens with Flip’s Facebook competition. Hopefully there won’t be any indiscretions, but if there are then appropriate action should be taken.

Voting competitions are fast becoming a mammoth pain in the backside and it’s about time promoters woke up and started to realise the problems they’re getting into with them. Yes they do create viral buzz, but perhaps not always for the right reasons.

Another competition promoter have been left with egg on their face when it was revealed that the winning entry they picked was allegedly lifted off the internet. Appletiser, via their Facebook page, had been asking for photos of beautiful food. Once uploaded you also need to ask your mates for votes.

The winning picture was a beautifully presented set of Strawberry Santas. The strawberries are cut to stand up and also the top removed to create a santa hat. Cream is piped to create a face and the “hat” replaced. Eyes are added for effect.

It appears on the face of it a worthy winner. Simple, fun and innovative!

However, eagle eyed compers spotted that the winning image appears to be the same as this photo on Flickr from 2007. We’re unable to show the image as the Japanese photographer has switched off the share option – but compare and contrast this image with that of the winner!

However, this isn’t the only issue for Appletiser to consider. Compers are suggesting that the winning entry wasn’t a category winner and therefore shouldn’t have even been up for the overall prize and that the terms of the competition weren’t followed. We’re also wondering what was the point of the voting element of the competition as they don’t seem to have come in to play?

The good news is that Appletiser are now investigating and have left the following message on Facebook:

Thank you all for your comments and messages. The Appletiser judging panel is listening and is reviewing all winning photography. We will communicate with you regarding the winning meal plates by the end of this week

Hopefully fair play will win through in the end, but this should serve as a big warning for other promoters, especially when it comes down to running photo competitions and getting participants to vote. They need to be vigilant, honour their terms and conditions and ensure that the competition is fair!

The only saving grace is that on a social network like Facebook any issues can be raised by participants. We’ll keep an eye on what happens next with Appletiser, in the mean time we’re off to create some Strawberry Santas! They do look pretty good!

If you have any comments on the competition do feel free to post below.

DS Streetseekers, the Facebook game from Citroen that uses Google Maps, is back for a second run and they’re offering you the chance to get your hands on a brand new Citroen DS3. The game is fairly simple to play! Every day for five days there are clues posted on the site. You use the clues to determine a location, and then “walk along” via Google Streetview until you “solve” the clue.

This is the second time the competition has been run, but this time round things are a little different. In the first competition the last clue had a time based element to it. The players who were quickest to the finishing line won, which was OK, but it left many people annoyed and frustrated. Having spent the week solving clues they at least wanted a fair chance to try and win.

To try and make things fairer the last clue will be on site until 10am on 30th August and everyone who solves the Streetseekers puzzle by collecting all the pieces of the puzzle will be entered into a prize draw. As well as the top prize of a Citroen DS3 there are also Xbox 360 Elite consoles on offer.

It’s a shame in some ways that the speed/skill element has gone as it means those who are first to solve the clues don’t get rewarded. Perhaps in a future game Citroen could offer prize draw entries for people solving the clues say within the first quarter of an hour or perhaps even offer random prizes based on time of arrival?

Win a Citroen DS3

Competitions are in the press again thanks to an interesting article in The Telegraph called Win Big From Competitions. The article tries to put across a message that you can do well from doing competitions but elements of the article may well be disheartening to many who enjoy the comping hobby and who play by the rules.

One line from the piece that stands out for us, other than our own soundbite, is “being a successful comper requires strategy, an understanding of statistics and a high level of deviousness”. Do compers really need to be devious to be successful? We’d hope not! Comping should be fun and fair and this implication of looking for loopholes or bending the rules most certainly won’t put us all in a good light.

However, incidents do occur that bring compers into conflict with promoters and also with each other.

Edwin Mutton, a well known name from the Institute of Sales Promotion, mentions in the article that he knew “a trading standards officer who bought £1,000 of Magnums and made £5,000″. However, back in 2009 when this competition had concluded we likened the Magnum competition to be more of a gambling promotion. The comment from Mr Mutton further emphasises that. Quite simply, people played the odds on this “competition”. The activity, whilst within the rules also upset a lot of participants.

The same “it’s just gambling in disguise” analogy can also be applied to the current Pepsi promotion. If you buy £100 of Pepsi and win one Flip Camera then that covers your costs. If you win two from that £100 outlay then you’ve doubled your money. Of course there’s the possibility you win nothing!

We’re not sure this activity can be classed as devious though. People taking this approach are just simply playing the odds at the line where a what is a competition and what is gambling becomes very blurred.

Another talking point comes from Steve Middleton of Compers News who is quoted as saying “There are some [compers] sitting on 100 mobile phones in order to enter these competitions”. and most certainly there are compers with a number of “comping mobiles”.

We’d be surprised if this wasn’t true!

Mind 100 mobiles sounds insane as there’s just not enough room down the side of the sofa for them all to congregate. However, if it’s allowed within the rules to enter via 100 mobiles then you can question whether it’s devious or again playing the odds? It also does make you wonder why there aren’t more restrictions in place though – a simple “text in your name, address” element would at least partly quash that issue.

The article holds some fascination as it’s a mini insight into what can go on in comping. We’re not sure devious is a fair word within the article content. Devious would be for example something like someone within a promotions agency tipping off someone about when is the best time to enter an instant win comp, or employee’s of a promoter entering (and winning) their competitions.

Playing the odds may be regarded as devious, but in another light it could just be ingenuity based on the rules of the promotion.

However, such activity may be frowned upon by other compers and it’s understandable why some may be put off comping after reading the article. The key is to remember that it only covers a small element of the hobby (instant win on pack competitions). Most competitions only allow one entry per person or address, and many compers play well within the rules.

If you’re in a position to “gamble” on volume purchases or maintain 100 mobile phones then that’s your decision. But, if you’ve read that article and think that’s what I have to do to be successful then be careful. Please don’t feel that you need to splash the weekly shopping budget on bulk buying of products. Remember to treat comping as a bit of fun and enjoy it within your own means and moral compass.

And let’s hope that one day promoters eventually get round to making sure their competitions terms are watertight, so that they are fair for all participants. This article may well make one or two look more closely at their rules.

Win Big From Competitions