Interesting Article re Facebook Competitions
Comments
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So for the business side, you don't want a company running a like/share etc because you don't break the rules to run them (fair enough).
For the comper the potential upside for taking a few seconds to enter far outweighs the downside of possibly not having an entry counted or maybe being disregarded - if a few people stop entering it just gives those who continue a slightly better chance as the numbers will never drop enough to stop them being run without FB doing something about it.
We had a thread on here over 3 years ago "Lets shout 'No to L&S'" some of the posts to FB were ignored/removed and some had positive responses.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=44988070 -
It's not so much about my personal experience running a business and playing by the rules - if I were to throw a huff every time a large business/competitor got away with something that I think is slightly questionable I wouldn't get much work done. It's much more about the ethics of businesses knowingly deceiving their customers and those customers not really knowing that's the case that I have an issue with.So for the business side, you don't want a company running a like/share etc because you don't break the rules to run them (fair enough).
That's a fair point, if you're entering loads of competitions all the time, you probably care slightly less about whether you win all the time or not. My point resides more with there's a group of people that are immediately being discounted because the business isn't playing by the rules (Facebook rules and the CAP code as previously discussed) which I don't believe is fair. ITV got fined a while back due to the premium line issue (X Factor, Saturday Night Takeaway, etc) where winners were pre-selected and those who called in afterward were still charged but not included. Regardless if it's a perceptively free entry or not - it's still not fair on other entrants.For the comper the potential upside for taking a few seconds to enter far outweighs the downside of possibly not having an entry counted or maybe being disregarded - if a few people stop entering it just gives those who continue a slightly better chance as the numbers will never drop enough to stop them being run without FB doing something about it.0 -
ScottMcGready wrote: »
That's a fair point, if you're entering loads of competitions all the time, you probably care slightly less about whether you win all the time or not. My point resides more with there's a group of people that are immediately being discounted because the business isn't playing by the rules (Facebook rules and the CAP code as previously discussed) which I don't believe is fair. ITV got fined a while back due to the premium line issue (X Factor, Saturday Night Takeaway, etc) where winners were pre-selected and those who called in afterward were still charged but not included. Regardless if it's a perceptively free entry or not - it's still not fair on other entrants.
It may not be fair (if it happens) but would anyone entering really be that bothered about the possible 5 seconds they might have wasted and if they were it could be even worse for them if they entered using an app as that certainly takes longer/more effort and their entry can be discounted just as easily as a like/share one.
Say there was a £100 prize up for grabs in a like competition but it was spelled out that there was only a 50% chance an entry would count I suspect that would make little difference to the number of entries because as always no entry = no chance.0 -
Your article is interesting and raises some valid points, Scott, but I think the problem is much wider in the sense that the whole CAP Code is being ignored by most companies who run competitions.
For example, there is the rule (quoted in your article) stating that an independent judge must be involved in subjective selection competitions. This rule is hardly ever observed, even by some really big companies.
And then you have competitions that state in the T&Cs that a winner will be chosen at random (possibly to circumvent the CAP requirement to employ an independent judge) yet the company says in its winner announcement: "Congratulations to X on this winning photo which we absolutely loved".
Then there's the companies who, against the grain of random or impartially judged selection, blatantly hand out new cars and holidays to "comping queens" because they see them as brand ambassadors (one such person has swept the board this year).
Worse still is when a comping queen wins for submitting a wacky humorous photo, but the task in the competition was to answer a question (AND it was meant to be a random winner selection!)
The CAP Code is really just a laughing stock nowadays.0 -
It may not be fair (if it happens) but would anyone entering really be that bothered about the possible 5 seconds they might have wasted and if they were it could be even worse for them if they entered using an app as that certainly takes longer/more effort and their entry can be discounted just as easily as a like/share one.
Say there was a £100 prize up for grabs in a like competition but it was spelled out that there was only a 50% chance an entry would count I suspect that would make little difference to the number of entries because as always no entry = no chance.
I actually don't have a problem with those kind of competitions, if the businesses made clear that they couldn't see all entries - then it'd be (closer to) a fair competition. The app method I mentioned is the only way to make each entry fair.
100% agree the businesses can still pick and choose as they please but at least every entry is available to the business.Your article is interesting and raises some valid points, Scott, but I think the problem is much wider in the sense that the whole CAP Code is being ignored by most companies who run competitions.
For example, there is the rule (quoted in your article) stating that an independent judge must be involved in subjective selection competitions. This rule is hardly ever observed, even by some really big companies.
And then you have competitions that state in the T&Cs that a winner will be chosen at random (possibly to circumvent the CAP requirement to employ an independent judge) yet the company says in its winner announcement: "Congratulations to X on this winning photo which we absolutely loved".
Then there's the companies who, against the grain of random or impartially judged selection, blatantly hand out new cars and holidays to "comping queens" because they see them as brand ambassadors (one such person has swept the board this year).
Worse still is when a comping queen wins for submitting a wacky humorous photo, but the task in the competition was to answer a question (AND it was meant to be a random winner selection!)
The CAP Code is really just a laughing stock nowadays.
Thanks taxiphil, you're absolutely spot on - there's a number of things that are either ignored or not policed simply because of the transient nature of the internet. I spend a lot of time fighting for a better Data Protection Act. As it stands, it's broken, and it's very difficult for bodies to investigate if the Data Protection Act has been misused. In fact, the way it's written just now opens the door to it being abused.
It's interesting what you say about "comping queens", I assume these people (and forgive my lack of knowledge in the comping area here - I hardly enter competitions, and certainly don't do it as regularly as you folks!) are "career compers"? If so that's very interesting as it jars with the experience I had with one company specifically not picking people that looked like they were compers.
You're absolutely right though - things like the CAP Code are ridiculously hard to police and fix but while they're broken I think it's worth highlighting the issues so that you guys, whether you are a career comper, or just a casual comper, know as many facts as possible. To me, that's just fair.0 -
ScottMcGready wrote: »
It's interesting what you say about "comping queens", I assume these people (and forgive my lack of knowledge in the comping area here - I hardly enter competitions, and certainly don't do it as regularly as you folks!) are "career compers"? If so that's very interesting as it jars with the experience I had with one company specifically not picking people that looked like they were compers.
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If you remove bloggers and "local" companies the vast majority do not "fiddle" their selection process but those that do are probably just as likely to pick a high profile comper/blogger etc for the extra exposure as they are to disregard a comper.
At one stage the National Lottery reserved the right to block what they considered to be compers from winning a TW competitionThe Promoter reserves the right to refuse entry to serial competition entrants. The Promoter will have ultimate and final say on who fits those criteria, but as a rule, anyone with over 50% of their Twitter communications as entries into competitions may face disqualification. The Promoter's decision is final.0 -
If you remove bloggers and "local" companies the vast majority do not "fiddle" their selection process but those that do are probably just as likely to pick a high profile comper/blogger etc for the extra exposure as they are to disregard a comper.
At one stage the National Lottery reserved the right to block what they considered to be compers from winning a TW competition
I don't agree with that - it unfairly excludes a lot of people from such a competition, especially if it isn't in their T's and C's (which no like and share competition I've seen has had a proper set, if any at all!). You guys should have just as much of a chance as a(n ir)regular joe like me that enters, perhaps, 1 competition every 5 years.
Reference the right to exclude compers - I can actually see the logic in it. It's not difficult for me to set up thousands of facebook profiles to automatically enter competitions (or phone numbers, twitter accounts, email addresses, and such) so that my chances of winning are higher. Obviously I don't do this, but I guess their idea behind blocking "serial compers" is to cut down any abuse of entry they might use to further their chances. Still, it unfairly targets you guys.
I feel I've opened a can of worms here!0 -
ScottMcGready wrote: »It's interesting what you say about "comping queens", I assume these people (and forgive my lack of knowledge in the comping area here - I hardly enter competitions, and certainly don't do it as regularly as you folks!) are "career compers"? If so that's very interesting as it jars with the experience I had with one company specifically not picking people that looked like they were compers.
It's only a handful of people really, but the people I'm talking about are experts in creating specially staged photographs and videos which clearly impress the promoters, as their win rates are phenomenal.
One of these people is married to the owner of a London advertising agency, and draws on his company's expertise and resources when producing her work. And another is ably assisted by a son-in-law who is a TV editor by trade and helps her produce and edit videos to a standard that could never be achieved by a typical consumer (although she pretends to be a fumbling old woman who does all this impressive video production work herself on a dated model of smartphone).
Of course, it could be argued that a promoter is acting entirely properly by choosing the highest quality entry as the winner (assuming it IS actually a skill-based, not a random selection, comp!). On the other hand, you only have to Google their names or look at their social media accounts to see that these people are professionals at what they do and have already won incredible numbers of high value prizes, so are clearly squeezing out all the amateur entrants who put in a lot of effort but lack access to professional resources.0 -
I have seen "we would also suggest you 'LIKE' our page so we are more likely to see your entry" on a few competition posts recently. Not L&S, but ones where a winner is picked from comments. Is this just a ploy to get more page likes or does liking/not-liking actually affect which comments can be seen by the competition runners? (Or indeed a bit of both!)0
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It's only a handful of people really, but the people I'm talking about are experts in creating specially staged photographs and videos which clearly impress the promoters, as their win rates are phenomenal.
One of these people is married to the owner of a London advertising agency, and draws on his company's expertise and resources when producing her work. And another is ably assisted by a son-in-law who is a TV editor by trade and helps her produce and edit videos to a standard that could never be achieved by a typical consumer (although she pretends to be a fumbling old woman who does all this impressive video production work herself on a dated model of smartphone).
Of course, it could be argued that a promoter is acting entirely properly by choosing the highest quality entry as the winner (assuming it IS actually a skill-based, not a random selection, comp!). On the other hand, you only have to Google their names or look at their social media accounts to see that these people are professionals at what they do and have already won incredible numbers of high value prizes, so are clearly squeezing out all the amateur entrants who put in a lot of effort but lack access to professional resources.
Very interesting. So there's a bit of favouritism. I think this is another valid point about these competitions is that the company can hand pick entrants and it's not entirely random (as some believe).2013yearofthehouse wrote: »I have seen "we would also suggest you 'LIKE' our page so we are more likely to see your entry" on a few competition posts recently. Not L&S, but ones where a winner is picked from comments. Is this just a ploy to get more page likes or does liking/not-liking actually affect which comments can be seen by the competition runners? (Or indeed a bit of both!)
Yeah, that's a blatant "we know we don't see all the likes, and we're aware some folks understand this, so here's our thinly veiled explanation that everything is alright" excuse. I feel that's a ploy to get more likes and to gain the entrant's trust (i.e. making out that you have a better chance of winning by doing something equally useless). Sure, commenting on the image has the best chance of showing up, but, as above, they tend to hand-pick entrants anyway so likelihood is that if your profile is private, you won't win. Also worth noting that fully public profiles don't always show up when you look at your insights/analytics page on the facebook pages admin.
Of course, the ultimate solution some will say will be to make your profile 100% public but I think that's a very, very, bad thing to do and there's no prize that's of equal value to unfettered access to your digital life - again, personal opinion!0
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