Enter-your-code style competitions

[Jon Corby]

I read earlier an article about a competition that soupmaker extraordinaire New Covent Garden Food ran, which operated similarly to our beloved chewing gum competition - that is, each pack contains a unique code which you then enter on a website to see if its a (predetermined) winner - but with one major difference: that being, that the soup competition had a single, high-value prize, rather than a whole boatload of low-value prizes.

It seems that the closing date for the competition has passed without the major prize being claimed, which has caused something of a backlash. Do you think people are right to complain? I mean, if there was a winning code, nobody has really been inconvenienced - but is there any assurance that the winning code even left the factory?

[Michael Wallace]

I've often wondered things like this. (I think I did some crowdsourcing on here for an article about McDonald's Monopoly, where you have to find the one Mayfair token to win the top prize.) The idea of the winning pack never leaving the factory is an old-as-the-hills question though (I can remember an episode of The Raccoons about it), but I guess you just have to trust that this stuff gets regulated?

The only 'solution' is presumably to make it a prize draw rather than an instant win, but I have a real soft spot for the latter. I can remember as a kid the excitement of sweet wrappers or whatever where they'd just say WINNER inside, whereas even instant wins now still require you to go to a website, enter a code, and give them a load of your personal details, all of which make the company more money and make you less likely to even bother.

Does anyone still do 'proper' instant wins any more? Walkers used to stick £5 notes in packets, do they ever do that sort of thing?

[David Barnard]

And entering personal details makes them more likely to contact you with junk mail and advertising stuff that you don't really want

[Jon Corby]

Does anyone still do 'proper' instant wins any more? Walkers used to stick £5 notes in packets, do they ever do that sort of thing?

Dunno, but I won £5 from a Walkers thingy once, but that was a code inside a blue bag. That was quite exciting, because it was potentially a big prize, you knew you'd won something but had to phone a number to find out.

It seems anyway that it's a cool way to run a competition with loads of small prizes, but not with one big prize.

Actually, wasn't there a similar stink kicked up about Camelot's scratchcards which advertised n x jackpots (or even just a jackpot amount), in that once all the jackpots have been claimed, every card sold then obviously has zero chance of winning it?

[Mark James]

I could be wrong about this but I think some band or music artist put tickets to their concert in one of their CDs in a shop without advertising it as any sort of competition. Just a nice surprise for whoever managed to buy that particular record.