The good news is that we’re through another pile of Advent and 12 Days of Christmas competitions for another year at least. To be fair it’s been a mostly smooth affair with few late nights and hardly any issues. We did have a slight panic on the 1st when we decided the server needed a little bit of a boost due to increased traffic and then it went off. Thankfully that was only a blip and we actually recorded our busiest day for some considerable time. Hopefully those of you who visited for the first time in ages or just the first time will stick around and see what else our free service offers throughout the comping year and not just for Christmas (that makes us sound like a kitten lol). Do let us know how you’ve got on with our listings – what you like, what you didn’t like! Were the 2023 cues useful? Is there anything we can do better? Feedback is always welcome and helps us improve Loquax. We sadly can’t fix Instagram for those of you frustrated by the platform but hopefully we’ve made the rest of advent comping a little easier. And just one last word on advents for now, a massive thank you to those users who have posted over the last week or so and those who have reported errors, fixes etc.
The Past Promotions Archive
If you’re a big fan of purchase necessary competitions and perhaps want to be reminded about promos that have passed then The Past Promotions Archive is a very useful resource. It’s sponsored by Promonow who are “a managed cloud platform used by brand owners and marketing agencies to create, configure and control brand marketing and promotional activity”. The archive, we believe, is meant to be a resource to inspire and other brands and agencies, to see what’s on trend etc. but from a compers point of view it can give you a reminder of competitions that have passed. It also acts as a little guide for purchase necessary competitions that we might have missed off the listings, which to be fair doesn’t seem to be that many. We’re obviously not going to get them all but there’s just over 100 at the moment on Loquax which isn’t bad for something that doesn’t cost you a penny. The one area we stumble on is if a promotion, like the new Cadbury Creme Egg one, is across multiple stores. We don’t flag it under Tesco or Asda or Sainsbury’s for example. That may be something we aim to fix in 2025 if there’s sufficient call for us do so. In terms of archives we do archive all past listed competitions but just assume search will be sufficient. That might be another improvement we can look at in the New Year.
Won In A Million Podcast
If you’re a fan of podcasts and fancy some winning inspiration then take a listen to the Won In A Million podcast courtesy of Reach PLC and The National Lottery. It’s not about comping as we know it, but features a variety of winners. The blurb on Spotify explains that the show, hosted by Ellie Taylor feaures guests such as “Helen Skelton, smasher of multiple world records and sharer of hilarious stories about not winning a BAFTA or the Strictly glitterball; Kola Bokkini, star of Ted Lasso and Race Across The World, aka the football guy who got a game plan and Thanyia Moore, who proves exactly why she won the prestigious Funny Woman In Comedy award”. Other guests include “Richard Jones, winner of Britain’s Got Talent and showstopping podcast magic performer” plus “Ginger Johnson, champion hot dog eater and winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race S5”. Sounds amazing! For those of you who prefer comping talk then there’s A Little Friendly Competition which is back for “Series 2” after a summer break whilst elsewhere Di Coke is interviewed on The Complaining Cow. It’s an interesting chat with Helen Dewdney who is a “consumer expert providing advice and opinion on topical consumer issues” (there’s quite a lot of interesting stuff on there in case you’re like me and never heard of the blog).
Instagram Bans
Sadly many of you are still picking up bans and suspensions thanks to Instagram’s overzealous spam detection system. The Instagram Problems thread on our forums is now on it’s 23rd page!! We’d love to be able to say how you can avoid such a ban but there’s no logic to how they’re picking people off and until the powers that be at Instagram HQ sort out their end then there’s little anyone else can do. To help you a little though we’ve started adding a few extra snippets onto Instagram competition listings so that you can quickly see whether to enter you need to Tag or Comment. The aim is just to save you a bit of time checking out comps where tagging is required and on the balance of things you’d rather choose another promo to look at. What is interesting though, by doing this, is seeing just how many prize draws on Instagrams require tagging as part of the entry process. It’s pretty much all of them! What this indicates to us – and anyone else other than Meta or Instagram – is that they’ve created this problem themselves. They’ve turned the platform into a stream of influencing and advertising and are now getting the hump with users because they’re using the platform for what it’s become. As we said on our recent blog about Instagram the issue isn’t one compers can solve. It’s an issue that Instagram need to get to grips with and decide whether giveaways and prize draws should be an acceptable part of daily IG use and if so allow users to interact accordingly. Alternatively ban prize draw use (or tagging to enter) and ban the brands not the users.
An Unforgettable Winning Moment
The next best thing after winning something is seeing someone else win something. And this video posted by PromoVeritas, the folks who oversee a lot of competitions, is a real feel good factor video (do we call them videos? Should it be a Tiktok? We’re just not down with the kids). Anyway it was a Booking.com competition/promotion which saw a presenter, out on the streets, asking people what their dreams were. In this particular Tiktok (yay we’re influencers now) a guy explains that his dream is to be an actor and is asked by the presenter to act as though he’d just won a £5000 holiday. The guy does a decent job – his reaction is pretty much what most people would do – but that’s not the best bit. The guy is then shocked when he’s actually presented with a holiday care of Booking.com. On top of that they tell him they’ll take him to Hollywood and connect him up with directors to hopefully realise his dream. If you love this kind of on screen inspiration there’s a whole bunch of unboxing videos you can find on on Youtube from various compers and there are podcasts etc. around too but nothing comes close to this minute or two of human reaction to a prize potentially changing their life. It’d be cool to know what happened next though.
BOTB Join The Win A House Sector
Win A House Competitions have changed considerably over the last few years. When they returned in 2017 they quickly became dominated by individuals aiming to “sell” their homes by an alternative means other than estate agents. Whilst there were some successes many found that the Wayne’s World 2 approach of put it on and the buyers will come approach just didn’t work. They had to do marketing and other stuff too. Enter stage left Omaze and “me too” platforms like Tramway Path and Raffle House, some of whom guaranteed house winners and others didn’t. Individuals still try their luck via Raffall but it’s pay to enter platforms who are now getting involved. BOTB (Best of The Best) is probably one of the longest pay to enter sites online. You may even remember when they were selling tickets for supercars in airports. They’ve watched as brands like Bounty, McKinney and Elite have grown into huge businesses. This has led to changes on BOTB including a free prize draw to win cars and more competitions. They’ve even decided it’s time for them to try a property giveaway and they’ve got a luxury Spanish Villa up for grabs. Entries cost just £2.99 and there is a no purchase necessary option too. If a villa in Spain isn’t for you then you could always choose the £240,000 cash alternative – should you win of course.
Raffaly – An Alternative To Raffall?
Raffall has popped up on Loquax many times over the last few years mainly because around 2020/21 it was a popular option for individuals looking to offer their homes as a prize and see their competitions conclude successfully. The platform enables anyone to run their own pay to enter prize draw. It’s quick and easy to use and Raffall takes care of the financial admin. Other sites have tried to do the same thing, Raffique for one, but without much success. Hoping for a better outcome are newcomers Raffaly. They hope to get the edge over Raffall by “helping hosts make more money, build stronger brands, and reach both new and existing audiences”. They’re doing this by taking less commission from hosts and gather emails for marketing. There are a few prizes currently listed on Raffaly including a year of coffee, MG Track Day and a Prime 3,400 m² Urban Plot in Morocco. A number of PTAs seem to be using the platform too and perhaps that might be the better direction for Raffaly. In our view it’s very early days for the platform and it needs to build up an audience. However it looks good and it’ll be interesting to see the direction the site takes in 2025.
Loquax News – Posting Additional Links
One of the things that is a little frustrating when it comes to our listings is that links like terms and conditions can’t be included in forum posts because our conversion system can’t distinguish between a competition link and non-competition link. It can make discussions about particular competitions difficult plus their presence would be useful for purchase necessary and similar promotions. The good news is that we now have a solution almost ready to go live. We need to do a couple of final tweaks but by wrapping links or text containing links with a tag (which we’ll tell you about when it’s ready) you’ll then be able to add extra content to posts without fearing the wrath of admin who’s spotted unnecessary links popping up in the listings. It’s been another busy year in terms of evolving Loquax. The win a house section is now integrated into the forum system as has the pay to enter sites review section. Our sports betting section – which to be fair wasn’t that great – has now upped sticks and joined bingo and slots over on Loquax Bingo. More recently the advents had a little extra addition of the Quick Start list and little cues to highlight your favourites and ignores from the previous year. Pretty all that development comes down to Kirsty who just loves having lots of new additions to her todo list. We don’t think we’ll ever hit a point where there’s nothing to improve but hopefully 2025 will be a lot less hectic development wise. Mind you, the blog still needs a new home!! Talking of blogs we’ll squeeze in at least one more festive thank you and round up before Santa turns up and scoffs all the pies.