We’re a little late covering this story, but it’s worth a mention. The demise of the tiebreaker is often lamented in some circles of comping. Many miss the skill that’s required in coming up with a unique strapline in 12 words or less whilst others miss searching previous competitions to find a chestnut or two to borrow. However, creativity is the current comping buzzword and there are good prizes to be won if you’re prepared to go above and beyond retweeting, liking or sending in your details. Take Phones4U and their “Success Is…” competition for example. You had to do the usual Facebook liking and then come up with a strapline in order to create your own Phones 4u press advert. There were Nokia E7 Sliver mobiles on offer for the ten winners. To guide entrants Phones4U even included some examples of their own. Their ideas included “getting away with it” and “pulling your best mates fit sister”.
The Winning Entries
The latter is key to the competition. Whilst “press advert” suggests they’re looking for something sensible and professional, the example is indicative of where they’re actually pitching things. The winning entries most certainly caused a bit of a reaction. Amongst the winners were Success is… “owning the burger van outside the social club on weight watchers night”, “not drunk texting your Ex on a night out”, “Winning! (but not necessarily in a Charlie Sheen way”, “facebook stalking a hottie & their profile being open” and perhaps the most controversial “being the filling in a mother/daughter sandwich”. The latter comment (and the weight watchers one) has resulted in a few comments from their followers. Our view is that Phones4U probably should have made it clearer that they wanted something more inline with The Inbetweeners than a press advert. Even so, a couple of the winning entries are a bit cringeworthy.
We Were Just Having A Bit Of Fun
In response to user feedback, Phones4U have kind of of apologised by commenting on their wall – “thanks to the huge number of entries we got for this competition and the winning entries that made us smile. We’re sorry that a few of you didn’t like the entries that won, but we were just having a bit of fun with Nokia’s new ad campaign”. Overall, we do have to remember that the judge’s decision is final, even if you like/dislike the quality of the winning entries. Unfortunately this is the problem when competitions are judged.
At least it wasn’t a voting competition, eh?