How competitions are drawn or judged

As you know, there are two main ways to enter and win competitions, and these are by chance, or by skill. Both have entirely different methods of drawing or judging.

Chance competitions are drawn at random, and the method by which this is done varies. With mail entries, the old barrel draw method can still apply, however you would understand that no barrel exists to take the large amount of entries in some competitions. Often a culling process is used, by which a pile out of say 20 piles is randomly selected to be the final draw. Of course, this should be totally at random.

SMS, web and 1900 phone can technically be drawn electronically, however some states have very stringent rules on how this can occur. For a promoter to draw electronically, they need to comply with various tests to ensure that the computer systems are fair and equitable. In a large number of cases, these competitions are drawn manually.

Skills competitions (words-or-less) in particular are by law required to be judged on their merit. So, how would thousands of entries be properly assessed. For mail entries and magazine, we ask ourselves the same question as logically agency staff don't have the time (or patience) to sift through each and every entry. But, let's say for arguments sake that this is done correctly.

Electronic skills competitions has made for an easier judging process. There are ways and means, perfectly legal and ethical for a company to search for certain criteria and narrow down the field. As an entrant it's your job to try and assume what the criteria would be (this is covered extensively in Competitions - The Book)

As an entrant, there is little that you can do to influence the process, however you are perfectly within your rights to ask questions if you feel that things are not as they should be.

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©Craig Bradley Market Engineering Pty Ltd. 2009. All articles are original content and opinions of the author Craig Seitam. Copying of all or part of any content without the expressed permission of the author is prohibited.