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The Comp-lete Opinion

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Blogs
The CompetitionsGuide.com.au blog pages are your passports to international comping pleasure.

Craig Seitam is Editor of Competitions Guide, Author of "Competitions - The Book", Promotions Consultant, Commentator, and all round fanatical writer on a wide range of subjects.

Within the CompetitionsGuide.com.au blogging area, Craig offers his many and varied views on every aspect of competitions, competing, promotions, randomness and anything that strikes him as worth writing about.

No topic (within reason) is off-limits, and members are encouraged to put forward topics or by all means send us your thoughts.


Also, you're welcome to make comments on the editor's FaceBook page at any time

Are you (really) safe?

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

An email from a member - Hi, I have been joined for a little while now and haven't really entered anything as I am concerned about the safety of putting my details on the computer. How can we be sure that the site we are entering is safe cheers Rebecca - read more

 

Noobs only thank you

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

Interesting question from member Sally .... As a member of Competitions Guide, I have now of course joined a number of other sites in order to enter their competitions. As new comps are being offered, I am finding i can not enter most of them , as I am an existing member. the number of competitions offered to existing members is very limited. - read more
Comments (4)

 

Why Why Why Why ....

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

... do people say things online that they normally wouldn't face to face. Case in point, an email we got through the week. i have a scractch and chan to win up tp $55,000 dollars or a olkswagagon eos 103 tdi. i have searched and searched and searched on ur site but cannot find where to logon to or too activate my chance/s to win with my id code unless ur all bullshit with this one - read more
Comments (4)

 

Apple Doesn't Need Me

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

Apple doesn't need me. I know this because they once told me. Taking a step back in time, I started managing competitions around 12 years ago, and have seen trends in prizes come and go. The first big one was the "digi camera". They were so cool, taking pics and not having to get them developed. Kodak, who was one of my main clients at the time made digital cameras, but not in the division I was assisting. Film just wasn't happening. - read more
Comments (3)

 

The Comp-lete Reasons for Competitions

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

Competitions work. Not everyone shares my view, but I've been in the game a long time and had formed this opinion long before Competitions Guide had been conceived. In the late 90's I worked for Coca-Cola. Those that believe that Coke needs to nothing except lie back and rake in the profits sometimes forget the amount of advertising it does. - read more
Comments (5)

 

Win One Million Dollars!!!!!

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

One million dollars is a lot of money. Obvious statements out of the way, it may surprise members to know that the two most clicked on competitions this year have been for prizes valued at under $1,000. Prize choice is a big thing for promoters, and at Competitions Guide we get to see exactly the level of interest, which does best, worst and so on. Cash prizes have always been a big draw, but promoters have to struggle with the question ... "do we make it $5,000, $10,000 or what?" - read more
Comments (9)

 

What a parrot taught me

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

Saturday was a crappy day, one of those that website owners dread. Competitions Guide went down and went down good and proper, in fact, it was out cold most of the day. My web hoster notified me early yesterday morning and it had me up in arms. No site equals unhappy members, plus lots of other sides, none good. - read more
Comments (4)

 

Hot Potato

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

I couldn't help noticing a major brand of potato chip promoting "From farm to packet in less than 48 hours" on both their packets and TV ads. Interesting. Don't get me wrong, I'm fanatical about use-by dates, even with ridiculous products such as Vegemite. But potatoes? They're not exactly fresh fish. - read more

 

Woo Hoo!

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

I'm going to be a bit indulgent in this post. You see, today we reached 25,000 registered members. It's happened so quickly, I remember in October last year being excited about 15,000 ..... So, at what stage does a website jump up and down and declare itself a success (even if a website can't jump up and down). The day it does, it starts going down. - read more
Comments (2)

 

A rice by any other name

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

I’m slow off the mark sometimes. It took me a few views of the latest Sunrice TV ad for the penny to drop. “That girl looks familiar” I thought. Of course, it’s Stephanie Rice ….. helping advertise …. rice, of course. Had Sunrice identified Stephanie, it would have been way too blatant. Doing it the way they have is nice and subtle, even if folks like me take a few whirls to get the picture. - read more
Comments (1)

 

A bomb of an idea

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

I'm dumbfounded by a new service that's sprung up. I won't give them a free plug, but here's the idea. For a low, low price of 99 cents a day, this website will enter competitions for you. Sit back, relax, and have all the hard work done for you. Sound good? Want to sign up? - read more
Comments (3)

 

Greetings from Hong Kong

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

We get lots of emails at Competitions Guide, but this one was too attractive not to respond to ...... My name is Mr. Liang Shing, I work with the Hang Seng Bank. There is a sum of Six Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars ($6.500,000.00) in my bank Hang Seng Bank ", Hong Kong.There were no beneficiaries stated concerning these funds which means no one would ever come to claim it.That is why I ask that we work together. - read more
Comments (1)

 

Postal Problem

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

We received a post a couple of days ago from a member ... I have a complaint about a lot of your competitions wont allow a po box for an address, if i put in our home address and win something i will not receive it as the post office will send it back. It is discriminating for these companies to do this, and it is not fair for people who live in country areas that want to enter your competitions. Country people are always being discriminated against .... - read more

 

Good idea or headache?

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

We've added a fairly significant competition this week for Panadol. Significant why? Because the prize pool is $100,000. Why is that signficant? Because it's a free-to-enter competition, that's why. And no, the makers of Panadol are not sponsors of our guide, but I do want to make a point. - read more

 

Waiting for .... something

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

The internet has brought out the impatience in people, me included. Many competitions that are listed on Competitions Guide are tested, especially if our members raise concerns about them. But strictly speaking we don't enter, as winning competitions we list wouldn't go down to well (for obvious reasons). - read more

 

Why hide ..... you'll be found

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

I've noticed in the past few weeks something new. Members contacting us to let us know that a competition posted as free-to-enter has actually been wrongly noted and should be shop-to-enter. Simple mistake? Yes, but it's the fact that this has been missed more than once annoys me. - read more

 

I don't care about spam ... but

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

It's true, I don't really care either way about spam, it's one of those things I've become used to. Although, being in my game I have to confess that occasionally Competitions Guide gets accused of being a spam merchant, however the fact of life is entering comps will increase your email folder and it's something we never shy away from. - read more

 

FaceBlock?

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

I have a FaceBook page, and a number of Competitions Guide members are also linked to me. Do I love FaceBook? Not really, I don't dislike it either, it's just one of those things that are a reality of life and it does give me a good way to communicate. One thing however that I need to advise our members is that it's time to get with the program. - read more
Comments (2)

 

Things real estate has taught me

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

I've been interested in promotions ever since I can remember. Even back to my teen years I remember the local club coming up with a crrraaaazzzzy idea to promote "beer futures". You could buy 25 beers in advance, and kind of hedge against prices increasing in the future. But since 25 beers was about a day's consumption for many of the members, it never seemed to take off. - read more

 

Once only thank you

CompetitionsGuide.com.au Stories

I was a little intrigued today by an email from a member pointing out a clause in the terms and conditions of the British Columbia competition. The clause in question was simply 8. If there is a dispute as to the identity of an entrant, the Promoter reserves the
right, in its sole discretion, to determine the identity of the entrant.
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Comments (1)

 

Hiding the value

Happy Australia Day to all members, and hate to blog with a whinge, but ....... I have a bit of a bug bear (is that how you spell it?) with some promoters, who have perfectly good competitions, but we can't list them. Our guide has some fairly basic requirements that we want our members to be able to see. - read more

 

January, the dead zone

It's been a while between blogs on this page, mainly as the last few have been shifted to our 'feedback' page. If CompetitionsGuide.com.au is your only source of competitions, you may not notice that January is a virtual wasteland for comps. We add 5 a day here, so for this site you wouldn't be likely to notice the impact. - read more

 

Happy Xmas and New Year

To all members, 2009 has been a big year, helped along by our name change and a lot of friendly media. We have made lots of changes and will continue to try to please as many members as we can. As we head into 2010 I wanted to take a few minutes out to wish all of you a very happy Xmas, and a great New Year to you and all of your families.
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Worst job in Australia

On the Discovery Channel they have a show called "Dirty Jobs" (I don't watch it as it seems boring), and there must be so many to choose from. But for me, I reckon the guy who plays Santa outside the Christmas Cave and similar venues has about the worst that you can get. Think about it, Australia was never truly set up for European style Christmases. The more qualified Santa's get to sit in relative luxury on the floor of Myer or DJ's, but not our Christmas Cavers. - read more

 

Are competitions a more mature FaceBook?

As a Promotions Consultant I get to work with more than the odd company, and I find it fascinating watching the screens of Gen Y's flickering on and off social networking sites. FaceBook is the drug of choice in most instances. I'm intrigued at the amount of time openly spent on this site, and it seems to be okay. - read more
Comments (2)

 

Questions making sense?

What would be your perfect way to spend a night with friends? How would you make the world a better place? What are your best tips for improving economics policies? 25 words or less please ...... okay, these questions may make some sense, but there's a common thread here, they're all toughies. I sometimes wonder how or why extremely difficult or creative WOL questions keep surfacing. - read more
Comments (1)

 

The (almost) perfect Xmas gift

I'm not a huge boxing fan, though I'll say it was amazing to hear Danny Green went 2 minutes last night without once mentioning his book .... Danny ... just a joke ... right? Anyway, I don't consider myself a huge plugger when it comes to my book. Yes, I do throw in the odd mention, but if you've heard me interviewed .... - read more

 

Useless Information Requested

I had to phone my parent's mobile this morning. Without boring you with the details, there's a family Xmas function on in Singleton tomorrow and I can't remember whether the secret santa present limit is $10 or $15. And I also know that signed copies of my book, or $15 vouchers I have left over don't count ... anyway, that's irrelevant.
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One last Polly Waffle?

I was semi-saddened to see the axing of Polly Waffles as reported today. The reason given was "Everybody says they love the Polly Waffle but the truth is no one buys it today. The time for it has been and gone." I purchased my last Polly Waffle chocolate in 1980 at a camping park in Bermagui on the NSW South Coast. To this end I still consider myself a dedicated fan, as the Polly Waffle has stayed as my 5th choice since then. - read more
Comments (1)

 

Smiths Chips number crunch

I'm not the only one in the world that finds potato chip flavours amusing. I think this came about sometime in the early 80's when one of the chip companies changed basic chicken flavour to "roast" chicken flavour. Sometimes I think that the art of chip manufacturing is pushing the limits of what we believe we would like to be eating if we weren't really having to settle for a chip. - read more

 

Ben and Jerrys free plug

PR is a funny thing, and as you'd probably know it's all about getting people to write about you or your product. To get people to write about you, it's normally a good idea to have something that's actually interesting to say. Having an online guide means that I get pitched at all the time to include competitions in our list, but rather than sometimes ask outright, I get emails with subjects such as "hey, check this out" - read more

 

Sausage recipes for winning

I'm often asked why businesses would want to promote using competitions, and for me it's fairly simple. Aside from gaining some much needed loyalty (and heaps cheaper to run than loyalty programs) they offer people that little bit extra.
Let me explain my thoughts, we're painting our house meaning I need to run backwards and forwards to the hardware store. - read more

 

The Australian Apprentice not firing

Speaking of competitions (which I sometimes get around to :) Up until a little while ago I thought that Foxtel IQ was potentially one of the greatest inventions of the past century (second only to the Swap n' Go gas bottle refill services). Then, last night as sometimes happens, my IQ clipped the last 5 minutes of The Apprentice Australia .... now it's Wednesday, and I haven't even bothered to find out who got fired. I'm finding the new series of The Apprentice Australia a bit flat. Thursday nights are a must for me - read more

 

Enid Blyton, we miss you ...

Two things recently have shown how times change. The first is some books that have been dragged out to fill a book shelf in our study, by Enid Blyton. Enid left us in 1968, but for those too young to remember or too old to care, she was a prolific story writer for young people. Prior to discovering Archie and Jughead, I was transfixed by her work.
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How competitive are we really?

Are those of us involved in competitions naturally competitive? After all, to take part in competitions is by definition to compete, but I wonder if this is really part of our personality. I have a pointless mind game that I like to play with myself, but to give you some background first. I take a train to get to my office, and to do so requires me to get off at Town Hall Station in Sydney. - read more

 

Be naked (kind of)

I've sorted out something that has been bugging me for the past two years. Since leaving the base of the blue mountains for the inner city I've opted for wireless broadband for the in between period of renting. Results have been so-so, but over time I think I've become accustomed to dumbing down my internet speed. Two months ago we moved into our new home, which was built in 1887. - read more

 

Thoughts on the Cup

I've answered questions on competitions vs. gambling for a number of years. To me, the two are distinctly different, as I don't know of too many people that have lost their shirts on consumer competitions. The good thing about the Melbourne Cup is that it gives once-a-year types like me the chance to pretend I know something about horses, all gained in a half hour gander of the racing pages. - read more

 

Losing and winning's fine line

A few years ago I was helping to teach my daughter to drive. As you'd find in traffic anywhere, there's a particular intersection that would drive me crazy. It's a right hand turn that has the capacity of banking up, yet the lights tend to turn orange within seconds of green, and only about 8-10 cars get let through depending on the speed of take-off of the drivers in front.
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Jellybeans over and over

I often have digs at promoters and agencies that repeat the same competition over and over again. I think people like variety, but this isn't always the case. In the early 90's I remember when Dulux started their 4 litre jellybean tin promotion. I thought this was quite novel at the time. At the end I hated jellybeans more than I hated painting.
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Sunny Boys, Pows and Razz's

Earlier this year, I was interviewed by Amanda Blair from 5AA. Radio interviews are normally stock standard (mispronounce my name, ask me what my biggest win has been ... even though I don't really enter comps), but this was cool because I got to take talkback calls. Amanda brought up the question of Sunny Boys. The ice block, not the band. Remember them? - read more

 

Tell others and win

Simple statement. The more people that join CompetitionsGuide.com.au, the more competitions there will be. So, I'm going to ask you to do something and that's to send an email to at least one friend telling them about this site. How will this help? The reason is this. As you would probably know CompetitionsGuide.com.au is owned and run by someone (me) who has - read more

 

Selling out (kind of)

Well, it's no secret to anyone visiting our listings pages that we now have a glowing selection of ads on the top and to the side. Have we sold out to commercialism? Nah, all competitions (within reason) have a commercial reason for being there. But in all seriousness, the right hand side of our pages has always been a mish mash of assorted banners and messages, - read more

 

Today Tonight

It's hard to go past not mentioning the great story by Today Tonight on Competitions Guide. Those of you who haven't seen it, you can watch it here .....


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Comments (1)

 

Games people play

Something struck me yesterday (no, not a bulldozer :) in terms of games being used as part of a competition. When I refer to games, I'm talking more about those in which you have to look for clues, take part in trivia or anything that requires skills not typical of a words-or-less competition. - read more

 

Hear this (and pass it on)

I have a different take on odds reduction. Like many, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about causes that don't directly affect me, my family, or friends, but that's just human nature. If you have never heard of tinnitus (which in layman's terms is ringing in the ear, constantly) and you like to listen to music at loud volumes please take a look at this short video clip. - read more

 

All help appreciated

Mistakes don't always happen, but sometimes they're unavoidable simply due to the information given to us. Yesterday one of our listed comps contained an email address, not web address, and as a result a strange error message appeared. Luckily for us, we found about this quickly thanks to our members. - read more

 

Amy Gillett Foundation

I don't often give special mentions to specific competitions on the blog pages, however I think you'll agree that this one more than deserves a plug.

As an on again-off again cyclist, I'm more than aware of the dangers associated with riding on city roads, especially in the inner city. - read more

 

Our new name ... the verdict is?

I was very nervous last Friday, after 5 years of operating what has been a successful brand was about to change. The change from ShoppersBonus.com.au to CompetitionsGuide.com.au will never be as widely discussed as say iSnack 2.0 (no kidding!) but I don't own shares in Kraft, so ............ - read more

 

Very McInteresting

A friend of mine is interviewing for an entry level marketing role, and some of the applications have been interesting. Case in point, a young male Gen Y'er started out his covering letter "Dear ______, I would like to apply for the advertised position. BTW, just tried on of those new McDonald's burgers, awesome!!!!" - read more

 

iShocker 2.0

One of the biggest comps in the country came to a conclusion as you may know, with the decision on the name of the new product extension for Vegemite.

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Please help Mike and Trish

I was touched to receive a note in my letterbox that Mike and Trish are urgently looking for a home. Not ANY home, mind you ... my home specifically.

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Complicated for nothing

My local train station, Stanmore, has just put an eftpos terminal in their ticket window. Before this, patrons had to remember to bring cash, which was annoying to remember the day before a weekly ticket runs out. Now, you don't need to , because you can buy your ticket by card.

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The fine print on fine print ......

" i would love to enter these current competitions,but the print is so minute on the enteries ,it can't be seen." (Rhondda)

Fine print has always fascinated me, and in my book (okay, another plug) I did happen to mention that often print is of small font simply to keep 3 full pages of information contained into the one quarter page entry form.


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Not sure I get it .....

WOL competitions (words-or-less to the uninitiated) have always been a hot topic of debate on ShoppersBonus.com.au, and I'd imagine many of the other competitions forums. People either love them or hate them (most in that latter), but as I've always said, if entrants learn how to nail these the wins will follow.

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They can put a man on the moon, but .....

I'm never short of topics to blog about it, but the subject of prize choice is never far away.

Prizes aren't really rocket science (no pun intended on this topic), and I've tackled this one on more than a few occasions, usually with over-zealous promoters who want to go out of their way to be wild n' crazy.

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Is creative really worth it?

Had an interesting question last week from Martin, one of our members who asked for some advice when promoters suggest that the "most creative entries will win".

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So, how do you rate?

Members would have noticed that this week we've introduced three competitions that all require entrants to rate various things. One of the comps is for Shoppers Bonus (as you would know by now). We haven't run a ratings comp before, but the great thing is that we're able to now look at some of the responses and track how the entries are going, and maybe pass on some advice?

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Lessons from Masterchef

I didn't like the Aussie version of Masterchef at first, too much of a change from the original format. However over the weeks I've become a huge fan, and manage to sustain 5 out of the 6 nights each week to the point that I record it if I'm not home.

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The lowdown on survey comps

It's hardly a secret that a large amount of competitions featuring on Shoppers Bonus are based around surveys, and frequently I get emails from members concerned about what they mean or are trying to do. The most obvious concern is personal details, so there's a strong point to be made.

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Comments (3)