Forum

If you read the terms and conditions, sometimes it says skills, creativity, and other times has random , lol.
Always disheartening, especially when you put a lot of time and effort and then a pretty average one wins that doesn't even answer the question😩, I personally don't enter many unless it's something I reallly would like to win

I often wonder the same. But then last year & week I won things were they commented on my answer :) I guess it all depends on the company!

I cant stand them to be honest. I see some publish people answers and people have made up there own poems and rap songs etc im like urgh.....Im a mum of 3. My creativity stops at cutting sandwiches into triangles lol I have no energy for peotic answers

it works like this - if you win, then they were judged on skill. If you don't win, they were obviously a random draw.

Ha ha! @jrob71 that's really funny!
I think it depends on the company and whoever is sitting behind the computer judging them. I've seen some very bad answers win and sometimes ones that have gone over 25wol. In the case of one well known company last year they gave away a mobile to the very last entry on the page that didn't even answer the question ( there were howls from other entrants) and another that only awards prizes to poems. I always answer in 25 WOL, make sure I follow the T&Cs and put in my best effort hoping the company will do the same. Most times they do follow the rules but if there's hundreds of entries they may be tempted to take shortcuts. Here's an example of a comp that didn't go right....

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1105600432804281&substory_index=0&id=140279612669706

and another that's kinda related to this...
https://m.facebook.com/GilletteVenusUK/photos/a.214670481893642.68394.194816007212423/1009460189081330/?type=1&permPage=1

In the last one, Carmi who lives in Philippines had her photo stolen by a person who worked as a contractor to Gillette (£5000 holiday) . You can see her response after she was contacted by one of the entrants.

@fourleaf WOW Just read the post about Carmi. That's disgraceful. I had someone steal my photo from Instagram & use it on their website. I was so pissed off. If they had contacted me like other companies have then it would of been ok but to just take it without asking isn't right.

I really enjoy entering photo comps as I get to show off my work & usually get some great feedback. Haven't won anything yet but hoping too.

This on is in a current comp!
It from a helicopter tour over the NaPali Coast in Kauai, Hawaii

Some companies only award wins to people with certain names ... when I check if I'd won all I see is Smith, Brown, Citizen etc ...

Will continue to enter and hope that thee 'judges' change sooner or later :-)

Wrote a small poem and didn't win tix to Melbourne and a show + transfers + hotel, the winning poem was published and it didn't even make sense... depends on the company.

Wow CeCee14 that's a great photo! I'm sure you'll win soon.

With the Carmi situation, have a look through the 24 replies under her comment. Gillette offered to send something to her in return and it was noticed on the first winners facebook business page and LinkedIn profile that she had just finished some advertising contract work with Gillette. Highly doubtful she didn't understand the terms. The comp was also judged weeks and weeks after the date in the T&Cs.

I've had wins where they have contacted me and commented that they liked what I wrote so some do read them and actually choose.
What steams me up is where the winner exceeds the word limit and Facebook comps can be the worst culprit for that.

@Annaar, I am a Smith and trust me I am not a HUGE winner. I really think it depends who the Company assigns the judging to. I think you will find it is the Junior. I remember in the 1980s when I was a junior office clerk, I was asked to go through 1000s of baby photos to narrow down the selection for final judging which was a public event.