Helene Hadsell was inspired by the Olympic games and wrote the following article for you to enjoy.
Fourteen Karats of Wisdom
Are You A Gold-Silver or Bronze Winner?
The 2010 Olympic awards Metals for physical performances; I purpose that we have awards for anyone that uses their mind-imagination & benevolent actions on a daily basis.
Answer the following questions to see how you rate.
1. Do you act on your emotions? Logic may provide the reason for buying or doing something, but emotion supplies the urge.
2. Are you using your sixth sense, a knowing that just sort of happens? If so-you can move mountains with persistence and determination.
3. I once read that people are divided into three groups: (1) those who make things happen. (2) Those who watch things happen, and (3) those who wonder, ‘What happened?’ Do you make things happen?
4. I dislike the saying ‘Never cross a bridge until you come to it.’ The world is owned by men and women who cross bridges in their imagination miles and miles in advance of the procession. Are you one of those people?
5. Do you try to make the most of all that comes & the least of all that goes?
6. What you think means more than anything else in your life-more than what you earn, more than where you live, more than your social position, and more than what anyone else may think about you. Are you aware of this?
7. Wholeheartedness is contagious. Give of yourself if you want to get it from others. Are you practicing this rule?
8. Have you always been able to tell when you’re on the right track, because that track has always been uphill?. Are you like a duck-calm and unruffled on the surface, paddling like the devil underneath?
10. Have you learned that it’s not who is right but what is right that matters?
11. Are you aware that your good will is the only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy?
12. Did you know that if you look successful, you’re going to be successful? People will have confidence in you if you look like you have confidence in yourself.
13. Did you know that when you can do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you can command the attention of the world?
14. If you really do what you feel when you feel it; you could continue to go beyond. It seems that when you’re young, you worry about what everyone thinks about you. At about age 30, you may come to realize the world wasn’t really paying that close attention. Have you learned that yet?
Qualifications
To qualify for a GOLD Metal you must have had the perfect score of 14.
To qualify for a SILVER Metal you must have answered yes to 10 questions.
To qualify for a BRONZE Metal you must have scored 8 points.
Anyone that has fewer than 8 points needs an Attitude Adjustment.
Yesterday I read a great blog post by Jayson Ambrose (@jaysonambrose) 6 Tips for Attracting Great UGC which prompted me to write about User Generated Content contests today. I took offence to his comment: “Professional contesters scour the net for fast, easy contests and know every trick in the book to stuff the ballot box. A large cash prize is sufficient motivation for a good developer to build software to exploit your user-friendly entry process.”, so I commented on his blog post. (I won’t re-post what I wrote here. You can read his whole post and comments from the link above.) He commented back. It turns out we see eye-to-eye on many points when it comes to creating and executing promotions to maximize the contest sponsor’s marketing ROI.
Let’s start with what UGC is. UGC is an acronym for User Generated Content aka UGM, User Generated Media. It means that the entrant is creating the contest content such as submitting an essay, picture, video, unique recipe, etc.
Why would you want to enter a UGC contest in the first place? The odds could be very good, for example with the current Try The Sauce promotion sponsored by Aylmer, there are only 30 entries since the contest opened back in October! Also, the rewards could be great, such as with the annual Pillsbury Bake-Off. Their grand prize is $1,000,000! You can bet they get tens of thousands of entries.
UGC contests require more “work” to enter. Many people are intimidated by the process or the daunting task of being creative so they just don’t bother. Still others feel their odds of winning a simple entry sweepstakes is much greater since they will be relying on luck rather then skill, originality or the votes of strangers. It is especially important to read the rules when it comes to UGC contests. There will be specific points you will have to follow to ensure you do not get disqualified.
For example, from the Aylmer Try The Sauce Official Rules:
How to Enter: To enter, create and submit an original Video that must feature “TRY THE SAUCE!” in some capacity. Videos should have a maximum running time of :30 seconds. Visit www.YouTube.com and upload your video. Then visit www.trythesauce.ca or www.essayelasauce.ca and follow the links and instructions to complete and submit the registration form, including the URL and title of your video, as well as a valid home mailing address and email address. By uploading your Submission, you agree that it conforms to the Submission Guidelines and Content Restrictions as defined below and that Sponsor, in its sole discretion, may remove your Submission and disqualify you from the Contest if it believes, in its sole discretion, that your Submission fails to conform to the Guidelines and Restrictions. Entrants’ Video Submission(s) may be submitted any time during the Contest Period at the TRY THE SAUCE ContestMicrosite . Entrants may submit more than one unique video submission in the Contest, but each Video must be unique and original to the entrant. All required information must be supplied for the entry to be eligible. By submitting an entry, each entrant agrees and consents to abide by the Contest Rules. In order to be eligible, Video Submissions must be submitted online via the Contest Entry Page of theMicrosite . Any Video(s) submitted to the Sponsor and/or its representatives by any other means, including but not limited to mail, courier, or hand delivery will not be accepted or entered into this Contest.
Technical/Creative/Legal Requirements for the Video Submissions (“Video Submissions”):
Running Time: 30 seconds maximum, including any credits. If entry is longer than: 30 seconds, only the first 30 seconds will be posted on theMicrosite and judged. Any video submissions longer than 30 seconds may be disqualified at the sole discretion of Sponsor.
Language: English or French only (Videos submitted in any other language will be
disqualified).
Creative Requirements: In addition to the technical requirements, each video submission must feature a delivery of the tagline “TRY THE SAUCE!” presented in an original, creative and unique way. Entrants may use the Aylmer TRY THE SAUCE video shorts for inspiration, or provide their own style of video, provided that the TRY THE SAUCE line is delivered in each video.
Those are only 2 paragraphs from the entire 8 page set of rules. No wonder there are only 30 entries. (BTW, my favourite is titled Spagetti Pinball.)
So, take a look at all the contests that are out there for you to enter. You may wish to set aside a couple of hours a week to devote to UGC contests. Who knows, you may just be the next person to name the new Doritos flavour (@DoritosCanada).
What happens when a contest goes awry? Sometimes nothing, legally. That is precisely why companies pay promotional lawyers to write air tight rules.
Recently M&Ms launched their annual Join The Hunt Easter contest. The contest had a technical glitch the first day and almost every PIN code entered won an instant prize. Oops! The people at M&Ms figured it out pretty quickly and fixed the problem. Now, legally they were not obligated to award any of those prizes. Why?
Because, the rules stated: If any electronic or other error occurs, such as, but not limited to more prizes are claimed/designated than are to be awarded, the prizes remaining after the error is discovered will be awarded in a random drawing from among all eligible Instant Winner registrations received by the Instant Win Game Closing Date. In no event will the Sponsor be liable for more than the Two Thousand and sixty (2060) Instant Win Game Prizes as disclosed in the Official Rules.
Now, from a marketing perspective, angering your customers, especially in this age of social networking, is not smart. So, M&Ms apologized for not being able to award the instant prize and instead gave each winner a $20 gift, however, not until some damage had already been done. (Discussions regarding the “M&Ms Fiasco of 2010″ can be read on Red Flag Deals and on Quebec Concours.) Some people agree with how M&Ms handled the contest glitch and others did not. I think M&Ms did their best to handle the glitch. I believe it took them so long to respond to the entrants because they did not have a plan in place to resolve such a problem, and the marketing department had to scramble to come up with a damage control plan.
I think contest sponsors also need to be more careful when hiring an agency to run their promotions for them. When there is a contest glitch, it’s not the contest management company who’s reputation get sullied, it’s the sponsor’s. (Remember, last summer when the IC Group didn’t buy a security certificate longer than the duration of the Pepsi A Flip An Hour promotion? How in the world could you screw that up?! Read Craig Borysowich’s blog on that fiasco here.) I think M&Ms reputation was not helped when the error occurred. Their company is so large, I don’t think the damage was great, but there was still damage.
What do you think should have happened when the proverbial ball was dropped? What is your perception of M&Ms now?
When you enter a contest or sweepstakes, and read the rules, you will usually see the statement approximate retail value (”ARV”) of or estimated Retail Value (“ERV”) of. So, what is ARV and ERV? The sponsors may not know the exact price of the prize when they will be awarding it, when they write the rules weeks or months in advance. To protect themselves, legally, they use the ARV or ERV statement within The Official Rules. This allows for example; fluctuations in airline tickets or sales on electronics, etc.
Let’s look at the ARV from the the Olympic contest we won. The rules stated: The approximate retail value of each Grand Prize Package is $40,000 (plus all applicable taxes) based on departure from St. John’s, Newfoundland. The approximate retail value will vary depending on the departure location.
What was our trip really worth $40,000? Well, let’s begin with the fact we were going to the Olympics. You can bet the airfare, hotel stay and event tickets were not going be discounted in any way, and probably even inflated. We estimated; the airfare was $1,000 per person as we departed from Toronto, the rooms were $250 per night, including a breakfast buffet along with a $75 VISA gift card per person to cover the balance of the meals, 4 tickets to 5 events worth $2580, plus 4 bags full of Wonder branded swag worth about $500. Adding all our ERVs up we get $10,880. That is a far cry from the sponsor’s ARV of $40,000.
Am I disappointed? A wee bit, 1) because the rules stated that all meals would be covered; meals for four (4) people provided throughout duration of Grand Prize, (may include buffet; catered; event location meals; sit down; and/or meal vouchers) including location of each meal, will be selected at the sole discretion of Sponsor. I am not sure how the sponsor calculated we could eat out for 5 meals for $75, when each meal out averaged $25 per person. Heck, 2 hot dogs and 1 soda pop at a hockey game was $14!
Plus, 2) the rules stated it was a 4-day trip for four. We flew out mid-morning on Day 1, so we “lost” half-a-day, and we flew out very early on Day 4, “losing” another day. Therefore , we only had 2½ days in sunny Vancouver.
So, is it important to track the ARV or ERV? Not for Canadians, as we do not pay income tax on our winnings of any kind. It is especially important for American sweepers to track the true values and costs of their prizes (aka Fair Market Value “FMV”) because income tax is due on all sweepstakes wins. (NOTE: Tax is only payable on FMV, not ARV or ERV.) Had I been an American, you bet I would be showing the FMV was closer to $10,000 than $40,000!
(If you didn’t read Vol 6 Issue 3 of The Winning EDGE, you may not know we won a 4-day trip for four to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics from Wonder Bread. It was a contest you could enter one person per household per day to instantly win a pair of the Olympic red mittens and be entered into the grand prize draw.)
My original intention was to blog each day, but Weston Bakeries/Wonder Bread kept us busy from the get go. We (myself, my husband Craig and our best friends, Lori & Tom Hoppe) flew out of Toronto at 10:30am ET on Monday February 15th and landed in Vancouver at 12:30pm PT. All the winners and their guests were met by staff and lead us to a bus just for us. While waiting they offered us snacks and drinks. We were all whisked off to the Executive Hotel Vintage Suites. In the lobby more of the team met us, got us checked in to the hotel and gave us all the swag and paperwork we needed for the balance of the trip.
We got a one shoulder backpack containing: the famous Olympic red mittens (the ones I didn’t instantly win!), a Wonder+/Go Canada Go scarf, a logoed watch, a souvenir program, a small Olympic mascot stuffie, a red logoed mid-layer jacket, a white logoed ski jacket and an ID tag.
Weston Bakeries then gave us our itinerary, a VISA gift card pre-loaded with $75 to cover our meals for each of us and tickets to five events! The rules stated a minimum of two. We got tickets to:
Monday February 15
ICE HOCKEY UBC Thunderbird Arena 19:00
Tuesday February 16
ICE HOCKEY Canada Hockey Place 12:00
ICE HOCKEY Canada Hockey Place 21:00
Wednesday February 17
ICE HOCKEY Canada Hockey Place 12:00
SHORT TRACK SPEED SKATING Pacific Coliseum 17:00
Since we had spent the day sitting on the plane followed by a bus, we went for a walk into Yaletown to stretch our legs and for a “real” bite to eat as we didn’t want to eat stadium food for dinner. We found The Edge Social Grille and Lounge. The food was great, but what I found odd was, sitting in the bar area, watching the Olympic events live on big flat screen TVs, while we were only minutes away from the actual events.
We then caught the #17 bus on Howe St. to the UBC Thunderbird Arena to see the Sweden vs Slovakia Women’s Hockey game. (Since we had game tickets, the bus ride was free!) We were surprised to discover just how tight security was. Getting in was just like airport security; bag xrays and body scanners and wands. It’s a smaller sized arena, so every seat in the house has a good view. It was fun watching the women play. It reminded us of Junior A hockey with the way the players interacted with each other. We found it interesting that every player’s name on the Slovak team ended in “OVA”. Sweden won 6-2.
When we left the arena it was raining pretty hard and we didn’t have umbrellas. By the time we got back to the bus, we were soaked. The bus was packed and the windows fogged up pretty quickly. We had no idea where we were. The bus drivers are really good and they didn’t let us miss the stop close to our hotel.
The time change had thrown my schedule right off. I awoke at 4:00am PT and couldn’t get back to sleep. I decided to squeeze in a bit of contesting before the day started. An hour later I decided I needed to move and stretch so I thought I would try out one of Vancouver’s most famous yoga studios; YYoga (@yyoga) I went to their Flow Studio on Burrard Street for the 6:30am-7:30am YHot class. I had never done hot yoga before. Both the studio and the class were amazing.
When I got back, we got ready and enjoyed a buffet breakfast before getting on the bus to go to BC Place to see the Men’s Hockey. It was the USA vs Switzerland game. What a difference between watching the men and the women play. The men are better at being where the puck is plus they are far rougher. Lots of smashing into the boards. Since it is the stadium where the Vancouver Canucks play, it is much bigger and listening to the crowds cheering was amazing. It was hard to tell who was cheering for who as most of the stadium was in red and white with a bit of blue thrown in for good measure. USA won 3-1.
We then split up with Lori and Tom for the balance of the evening. We found the third hockey game too late for us as it began at 9:00pm PT (as it felt like midnight to us) so we gave them our tickets so they could go to the game with friends. Craig and I met up with CBC to film a bit of additional footage for a piece on luck that aired on The National (@CBCTheNational) Tuesday night, One Lucky Lady.
It turns out that Lori and Tom were not able to hook-up with their friends. While exploring the city they ended up in Lululemon (@lululemon). They discovered Liz (@lizcgse) and Tiffany (@tiffanycgse) were part of Lululemon’s Cool Global Sporting Event. They were to blog about the Olympics as part of their participation in the program. Tom and Lori gave the girls their extra tickets and had a ball at the game. (Read Liz’s blog post about their experience.)
Afterwards we went for a long walk checking out all the events in the city. It is also a lot of fun people watching. I made sure we popped into Lululemon as they had teamed up to YYoga to give the Gift of Yoga during the Olympics. I thought it was one free class at YYoga per person. It turns out it was an all-you-can-yoga event from February 12-28. Had I realized that, I would have gotten my pass on Monday so Tuesday morning’s yoga class would have been free. We decided we were going to attend the evening Candlelight Yoga class and since you should not do yoga on a full stomach we went for and early dinner at a great west coast institution called Earls. We arrived just after the Canada vs Norway Men’s hockey game started. The bar was packed! So we took a table in the dining room. We knew Canada was winning because every time Canada scored, the cheers, woots and hollers were deafening. Canada won 8-0.
There was also a pretty funky couple sitting next to us at Earls. He really stood out as he had huge glasses and tattoos everywhere. I noticed his wedding ring and thought it was a bit of an oxymoron as I couldn’t picture him taking out the garbage, doing dishes, folding laundry or taking care of the kids. Wednesday night while watching the late night evening news we discovered it was Dallas Green from the band Alexisonfire. Dallas was in the news as there was a problem at the free Alexisonfire concert earlier on Wednesday night.
We then continued our walk around they city. When we got back to the hotel room to get our yoga clothes, for a moment I thought we should just stay in as I was really tired. However, I hate missing anything fun and free so off we went to yoga. How many times have we ignored our instinct, inner voice or gut feelings only to discover later we were right? As the class progressed I found I had no strength to hold the poses, I didn’t have good balance and the icing on the cake was, during Savasana I drifted off and started to lightly snore!!
Since I figure I can always sleep either on the plane or at home, on Wednesday I got up early and went to the Yaletown Studio on Homer Street for the 7:00-8:00am YHot yoga class. (If you ever have a chance to take a class with Sandra Stephanson, go.) Still hockey’d out, Craig and I gave our last pair of hockey tickets to Lori and Tom. This time they were able to hook up with her brother Gary. As both Craig and I have family in and around British Columbia, we never have the luxury of spending this amount time in Vancouver proper, we took the time to visit Granville Island. It was so warm we saw people in t-shirts and shorts, cyclists, roller bladders, people walking their dogs, etc. along with spotting dozens of plants ready to bloom, in February!! Now I know why everyone wants to move to B.C.!
We met Lori and Gary at the Men’s and Women’s Short Track event at 5:00pm. We really liked it as it was the first event that made it feel we were at the Olympics. We got to watch the 500m Men’s, 5000m Men’s Relay and the 500m Women’s Final. We saw Marianne St-Gelais win silver for Canada. How exciting!!
After the races we went to Gastown for dinner, ate at the Water St. Cafe and went shopping for Official Olympic souvenirs. Since it was our last chance, we walked the three blocks to see the exterior Olympic torch. WOW! What a way to end the trip.
At this point my legs were so sore from walking for three days and taking three yoga classes we took a cab back to the hotel to pack up.
Now calling our win a 4-day trip is a bit of a misnomer since the 4th day is spent travelling. We were up at 5:00am to catch our 9:00am flight home. The plane had to be de-iced as it had just come from Sydney Australia, so it left late. We landed at 4:45pm only to have Air Canada lose the container with our luggage. An hour later they found it. Travelling is no vacation!
Overall, the trip of a lifetime!
Remember to always support the sponsors or there won’t be contests and sweepstakes like this for us to enter.
Last week I was interviewed by Geoffrey Gooden (@GeoffGooden), a media student at Durham College for the school paper, The Chronicle. (Read article here.) What I found interesting during our conversation was Geoffrey’s reaction to one of my comments.
He said since he had initially contacted me, he began entering contests. He then proceed to tell me about one he really wanted to win run by a local television station. I said, “I am entering that one too!” His face fell. I knew what he was thinking. “If she is entering, I won’t win.”
I would like to think I would win every contest I enter, but I don’t. (I have yet to fully master Helene Hadsell’s technique!) I calculated it out once. I lose more than 99% of what I enter. So, for me to win 5-15+ prizes each month, month-after-month, I need enter a lot.
I let Geoffrey know “it only takes WON to win“.
What are the odds? It can vary. One contest we won had over 168,000 unique entrants and over 15 million entries over a six month period. Another WON was only one entry per household and had 6,000 entries.
So, don’t think about the odds and enter, enter, enter. You never know which one will be your next big win!
I can’t thank A.M.P.R. enough for donating the movie passes for St. John of Las Vegas. The movie pass winners in Vancouver and Montreal saw it on Monday. (I was looking forward to going as I got a few Thank You emails telling me what a good time they had and how funny the movie was.)
Last night, Roy, Laura, myself, Katherine, Robert & Dave all met at the AMC 24 at Yonge & Dundas. (Craig was with us, but he was taking the photo!) We had a chance to chat for about 30 minutes before the movies started. Which was a good thing too, as everyone was to tired to go for coffee afterwards.
I loved the movie! It was one of those weird movies that is oddly funny as bizarre things happen to the quirky characters. I mean, the main character John, is played by Steve Buscemi. Need I say more? He did play Carl in Fargo. If you want a relaxing night out at the movies where you laugh yourself silly, but not so hard Coke comes through your nose, go see St. John of Las Vegas.
A good time was had by all.
Stay tuned for my next Night Out With The Contest Queen blog contest!
Yesterday afternoon my daughter was watching Johnny Test on Teletoon, and as I was passing through the family room I heard the character Dukey say, “Well, it’s true, you haven’t won anything, but you have to enter a contest to win or lose, and you never enter contests, so basically, you’re nothing.”
WOW! What a message targeted towards kids! What I got from the statement was; it’s OK to win or lose, but you have to take action. Similar to; you have to be in it to win it, or my favourite, you can’t win if you don’t enter.
Recent Comments