Finally, after a last minute hiccup, the Devon Retreat win a house competition has reached the 46000 tickets sold mark and someone will win the house (or estate). Having seen a fair number of these competitions fail to even get close to the required number of tickets required to be sold to giveaway a house, it’s actually quite nice to see one reach a successful conclusion. The success of this competition no doubt can be attributed to the prize on offer.
Five Bedroom House For £25
The winner will become the owner of a five bedroom house, two bedroom timber lodges, 11.5 acres of woodland and 2 acres of coarse fishing lakes! Not a bad return for a £25 ticket. As well as the prize on offer, the competition has been afforded plenty of media publicity. An appearance on The BBC back in August (Win a Devon Estate) increased the sales of tickets and as word spread that for £25 you could win the house or what would have been a decent cash prize had all the tickets not be sold then interest continued to build. Finally as the magical 46000 came into view, a frenzy to pick up the remaining tickets meant that The Wilshaws took the step to suspend the competition whilst a few bugs were ironed out.
So What Happens Now?
At the moment the draw for the Oldborough Estate property is scheduled for December 7th. That may or may not be brought forward, but an announcement will be made on the official website. If you’ve bought a ticket good luck – we’ll be waiting for news of the winner with interest! Now that the ceiling has finally been broken with “win a house” competitions – and coupled with the current economic crisis in the housing market – we expect to see more competitions start to appear. For example Jacks Car Parts are offering a 3 bedroom home in Rochester. They’ve sold 7 tickets so far – just 9993 to go!
Unfortunately we don’t expect other “win a home” competitions to be as successful as Win a Devon Property with Fishing! The prize winner of the competition will have a potentially life changing prize that captures the imagination. Couple that with a good publicity, a decent website and a little bit of luck and there’s the formula for a successful campaign.
Replicating those conditions is the key for future successes.