Seeking the collective wisdom of OzB - what's with the 25 words or less thing when entering competitions? Is it simply just to weed out people entering things without regard for the marketing of whatever promotion, or do they actually ever use responses in future marketing things? Why 25 words? And if you just enter 'poo' do they delete your entry even if you otherwise would have won?
I rarely enter comps that ask me to come up with 25 words or less because I am just that lazy :)
If you read the terms and conditions on competitions they will often indicate if they are going to be judging the content of your 25 words or if they are going to just randomly pick.
I've won quite a few things with 25 or less comps where the content matters, just by taking a slightly quirky angle. FB comps have been great to see what people enter, most aren't original at all. Even when they can see everyone else has given the bog standard reply.
Aw, man. I'll never win anything. I give boring/honest rather than quirky/funny answers.
From what I understand it's whatever makes the judge(s) laugh.
I had a friend that was going to put something mediocre through, but his brother jumped on his PC before he was about to submit it. Changed it to something completely random and stupid but it won and he got the prize.
Personally, I don't think I'm ever going to win a major competition lol.
I won quite a few prizes (tix for easter show, disney on ice, movies) with 25 word or less comps. Coincidently all the wins were when I had come up with a funny short poem!
A few years back I entered a bunch of 25 words competitions. I won a weekend in NZ with flights, xbox games, movie tickets, GPS, tent and some other random stuff. You need to be funny and standout.
I absolutely hate these types of competitions. Especially those that get you to the website, only to then find out that I need a 25 words or less response. Say that in the original link!
I have also won a fair few prizes with 25WOL. A car is the biggest and best (had to make a purchase and then do a 25WOL entry). A $5,000 prize when my job had been GFCed was also nice!
a few tips that may help:
*make it relevant to the relevant prize or company
*as maf101 said, make it funny
*make sure it is 25WOL (or whatever that particular word count is)- they will count!!
Good Luck
I've seen a 26 word answer win a fully paid trip to Bathurst in the past. When I complained, they truncated two words into one to make it legitimate.
As someone who works in marketing I guarantee you they don't read all the entries. They'll look at a random selection and choose the best from there. Best 2 tips are make it stand out (quirky, humour, soppy, romantic, etc) and use the product/company name.
For low value prizes they will basically just pick one at random and if it is any good it will win.
edit: I should point out that you need correct spelling and mostly correct grammar.
Good to know! Thanks Hellfire ;)
My work recently gave out 3 iPads for completing a client survey and the 25WOL was as said before just to avoid the permits. All 400 or so responses were judged by a JP with only a number to identify winning entrants to ensure no gender or location bias. I saw the 3 winning entries and they were all rhymes and/or witty.
Eg one was "An apple a day keeps the doctor away. iPad iLike iNeed."
I think this might explain it:
http://businesslounge.net.au/2012/09/competitions-and-giveaw…
I actually first read about that explanation for the '25 words of less' thing somewhere on here, thanks to some knowledgeable OzBargainers :) Pretty sure that comps are designed that way in order to avoid paying for those permits.
Whether or not they actually even read and select answers out of all entries to find a winner, though, is still a mystery to me. I'd love to know as well! I enter those sorts of comps and give proper answers (but nothing witty or fun like poems or rhymes). Never won anything though. Others here, IIRC, just write anything.. even one word.. as chances are, the responses aren't even read.
Who knows! But I'd enter many many more comps if I knew they didn't read the answers lol.
I'd love to know if anyone here has won anything from a '25 words or less' comp with a throwaway answer that made no sense.
There have been some comps posted here which do seem to take the responses more seriously though, but you can usually tell which are serious. Usually involves much bigger prizes or extras like being interviewed/filmed/part of an advert or whatever (and might even have '100 words or less').