Why competitions are increasingly becoming like ‘quick lays’

When I was 19 and still living in Dublin, I worked on reception and assisted the marketing department during the summer. There was no internet back then and they had this room just stuffed full of prizes (it was amazing) and winners would rock up and be all antsy about getting their prize. I remember one woman damn well near losing her mind as I had to turn the room upside down looking for…a disposable razor and shaving set. The whole time I was hunting for it and she was mouthing off at me, I just couldn’t fathom why she was losing her mind over it! Afterwards other staff told me that she entered every competition!

Many years on and after working in magazines for a few years and seeing people lose their minds over prizes like a packet of CD Roms, to listening to clients trying to wheedle coverage through competitions and expecting the earth, to pr agencies buggering up the clients ad schedule because now that they’ve got a full page competition they’ve convinced the client they don’t need an ad, to running my own competitions and getting it from all sides, I’m still left wondering: what’s the real value in competitions?

For me, competitions ended up being part of an accidental growth strategy. Just over two years ago, I worked with a couple of key PR agencies and a number of retailers and regularly ran competitions. Traffic grew very fast and to be fair, there are quite a few people who are still regular readers that originally discovered as a result of a competition.

But what I also acquired was a shedload of competition hunters who come via sites like Moneysupermarket and have email addresses, typically at Hotmail and Yahoo that say stuff like ‘beckycomps’ because obviously someone advised these people to set up an email address specifically for comps so that all of the email newsletters that they no doubt signed up for to enter the competition get directed to that email address and don’t ‘disturb’ their normal life. They can scan the headlines in their inbox for prizes, enter even if they don’t want it because they can always sell it on eBay, and then delete.

Last summer response began to tail off for competitions and as every Jo, Bessy, and Fanny in the blogosphere started running competitions, the effect was a general dilution of impact. In fact everyone seemed to be running comps and it gave me the perfect excuse to run with my gut and stop doing competitions. I also did a search for the term ‘comp’ as well as ‘prize’ and ‘win’ and removed all of these people from the mailing list. These people are a pain in the bum subscribing and unsubscribing, and marking you as spam because they’re too lazy to press unsubscribe.

Much like how advertising on TV became really fragmented due to a wealth of channels available, competitions exclusivity and impact has become increasingly fragmented to the point where I would say that in some instances, competitions really can cheapen your brand and change people’s perception of you.

The worst thing is that the people who run competitions have become so focused on gaining more followers, having more ‘fans’, having more people on their list, getting more comments etc, that the people who really miss out are your existing readership.

Most of these transient competition entrants don’t engage or stick around – are we so desperate for the online equivalent of a quick lay? Feels good up in the run to it, starts feeling a bit icky half way through, over very quickly, left wondering why the hell you bothered, great expectations aren’t met, someone might even scuttle off very quickly afterwards and pretend it didn’t happen. One may even forget to call and thank you for your hospitality…

The only reason why I will now run a competition is to reward loyal and existing readers.There are various other means of attracting new and loyal readers and when they do become this, they of course may benefit from the competitions.

I’m happy to have fewer engaged loyal readers than I am to have more transient, fickle, unengaged readers.

The problem is both the responsibility of the publisher (eg. the blogger) and the client/agency.

In whose interest is it to run the same competition across multiple blogs in a small pool? Why the hell do I want to read several blogs in the same sphere and read variations of the same competition again and again? I don’t even want to do that with reviews!

What has happened to bespoke opportunities? Whatever happened to being proactive and working with small, independent retailers, designers, or PR’s and coming up with something that is tailored to your audience and or your blog?

Why do independent online publishers, ie. bloggers let big brands hijack their blogs and give away prizes that even a small magazine or newspaper wouldn’t sniff at?

Why are people letting clients and agencies drink the milk for free and then wondering why they won’t buy the cow?

One thing that hasn’t changed since my days of working on a magazine is this: even though they probably won’t admit it, running a competition is cheap coverage for the client that doesn’t involve them putting their hand in their pocket.

Oh sure they’ll say ‘The product costs us money’. Whatever. While it does, mentally they don’t attach the same value as they do to putting their hand in their pocket.

Let’s not forget the big word: margin. When you ‘advertise’ (and it isadvertising) their product in the full page ad that is the competition, the cost to the client was not the prize value.

Something that you’re saying is worth, for example, £120, street value is that, but the client value might be £30! Shazam! They don’t write that product off at its retail value – it’s at cost.

Even our own editorial at the magazine had to admit that the attitude of clients and agencies about competitions is of cheap coverage that undermines the bottom line.

When you think about it: the net amount of readers that stick around, is it worth the time and energy putting together the competition and giving them what is effectively that free ‘one page ad’ that they wouldn’t dream of putting their hand in their pocket for?

The funny thing is that one of the chief reasons why I decided to run only occasional competitions or stuff focused on existing readers is: I’ve entered about five competitions in my entire life.

I am my reader. If I don’t enter competitions and they don’t spark interest and excitement in me – isn’t it safe to say that it’s possible the very same readership I created around my attitude and mindset might be very much the same?

Maybe it’s time that we all get to at least understand our own blogs and audiences and do what adds value for ourselves and for the readers because if you’re not adding real medium to long-term value with your competition activities, you probably shouldn’t bother as you’ll alienate readers in the short-term who expect better from you than trying to get a quick ‘legover’ that may again soothe your ego in the short-term but it won’t go much beyond that.