Competitions site iWon-iWon have announced that they’ll be sadly closing down. In a short announcement posted on Facebook they explained that the decison was based on the effect of “significant rising costs and rapidly falling advertising revenue over the past few months”. We understand that this means that the prize draw sites or sections that use the iWon Platform, such as Win Something, Pick My Postcode, Skint Dad and Free Competitions will cease to operate in the next few days. Furthermore the platform powers prize draws on various Bauer Media brands like Bella, Closer, Take A Break, Mother & Baby, That’s Life and TV Choice so these too will close. The Facebook post indicates that all competitions will close by the 28th April and any outstanding winners will be notified then. The iWon competitions platform is part of the The Simply Media Group and it was designed to offer brands the chance to promote their products by sponsoring a prize. This allowed iWon to giveaway 1000s of prizes and over the years we know Georgina has regularly posted these to Loquax. For many compers the daily visits to the various sites had become part of their comping ritual.
A Tough Decision
In case you’ve missed it the notice given to Facebook users is as follows: “To all our competition users, sadly we have taken the very tough decision to close our competition sites. We have loved running these competitions for the past few years, and have taken genuine joy out of making so many of you happy with the prizes you’ve won. Sadly, as you know, our sites are funded by advertising – we’ve seen significant rising costs and rapidly falling advertising revenue over the past few months, which means we simply cannot afford to carry on. All competitions will close by the 28th April and any outstanding winners will be notified then. Thank you all for supporting us over the years – we’re truly gutted to be saying goodbye, but we have little choice. All the best for the future. The iWon Team”. As far as we can see there aren’t any notices on the Pick My Postcode or Skint Dad sites but the latter doesn’t seem to have any links to the competitions whilst the former’s link goes to an error page. All versions of iWon are carrying the closure notice.
Enter By 28th April
From what we can gather all iWon-iWon prize draws will end, regardless of closing date, by the 28th April so you still have a few days to get some last entries in. After that we suspect that the sites will disappear and/or redirect to a holding page indicating the site(s) closure. In terms of comping it does leave a sizeable whole and a lot of questions. Will we now see brands like Bella, Mother & Baby and Skint Dad look to go back to running their own giveaways within their own platforms or on social media. They used iWon because it was a revenue stream so they’ll be looking to replace any lost income. Additionally it’s a big reminder that prize draw and competition sites, including portals such as ourselves, do need your support as without it they can’t survive. Whilst the closure is a sad loss for comping, it’s important to remember is there are people behind this venture who will be effected more. We can report that Georgina, who has driven iWon for several years, is off to work on a new site called Purpl Discounts. This site aims to provide discount codes and offers for disabled households in the UK. Good luck to Georgina with her venture and thanks for sharing the many iWon-iWon giveaways on Loquax.