About those resolutions…

Back in January 2017, I set myself three comping goals: get organised, run a giveaway, and lay off the protein comps.

One of these was an unqualified success, the other two not so good.

The success was of course my little collaboration with Brush Baby. This opportunity came out of the blue, after my son’s letter from the tooth fairy went viral, and if there’s one thing I like to do with opportunities, it’s bite their hands off. Several hundred people passed through here while the comp was live, and some of you even stuck around, so come here and let me give you all a great big thank you hug (or firm handshake if you’re not so touchy-feely) - you guys are the tops!

My relationship with protein comps meanwhile blew hot and cold. Mainly cold: for the bulk of the year, I managed to stay clean … but then December struck. Due to time restrictions, my Advent season didn’t stray far beyond the confines of Instagram, at which point I became overwhelmed by a tsunami of competitions to win hairbrushes and energy bars. Well, let’s just say I didn’t win any hairbrushes.

Finally, the organisation. This was calamitous. I tried a hard-copy diary, a list on my desktop, bookmarks on Chrome, and even emailing myself, but could I keep a handle on what comps to enter and when? NOPE! I suspect part of the problem is that my work patterns changed this year, leaving me with less free time (or at least, less brain energy). Then again, maybe I’m just getting old. Whatever the reason, my line manager is stamping a great big black FAIL on this bit of my annual review, and I’m under strict orders to get my teeth into this “development opportunity” before it bites me.

So what’s it to be this year?

My counsellor tells me I should make my goals more realistic, so I’m tempted to knock organisation on the head this year … but then again, I do so hate to be a quitter!

My counsellor also tells me to be kinder to myself, so I’m going to keep doing this for the craic. That means enjoying every win, no matter how small, and not beating myself up about days off or missing closing dates - there will always be more giveaways!

As a more formal goal, I’m going to see how well this blog can extend onto Instagram. Possibly it won’t translate at all, but you’re welcome to follow me @garywasabi during my awkward early stages. (Here, I should add that the plan is to use the account for comping natter rather than comping per se, as I’ve neither the time nor the inclination for the moral murk of comping with multiple accounts!)


What about you guys? Did things work out to plan? Let me know in the comments below! Oh, and if you’ve got any tips on organising me - just let me know!

2017: A year in numbers

2650: Total prize value (£). Amazingly, that’s the exact same number as last year. Well, semi-amazingly anyway - there’s a fair amount of rounding goes into these calculations as it’s impossible to attach an exact cost to things when most products can be bought at any number of prices from any number of vendors, with the result that RRP is largely meaningless. To further complicate matters, I’ve got some prizes in America that I’m yet to see, so can’t really say what they’re worth. With this in mind, let’s just say that I did no worse than last year, which is pretty good considering my patchy efforts.

1600: Biggest prize value (£). Oh my, this was nice - four mountain bikes and a GoPro camera from WD40! When I read the winning notification I actually felt a bit queasy, and if I’m honest, I’m still a bit numb - one bike would have been a great prize, as would the camera on its own. The fact that it was from an effort comp made it even sweeter! I’m highly indebted to my second-born for this win, as he undoubtedly added a little x-factor to my entry (see below).

130: Total value of vouchers won (£). This broke down into a £100 Amazon voucher, a £20 high street voucher and a £10 PayPal voucher. The Amazon voucher arrived just in time for my Christmas shopping so was especially appreciated.

44: Number of wins. Actually, my name was pulled out of the hat a total of 47 times, but two of those occasions were for a football match I was unable to attend due to a change in itinerary (the same match!), and I’m reluctant to count the “free” bottle of Lucozade I won during the Made to Move promo as the voucher actually cost me 4p to redeem. On the plus side, my mum gave me the football she won from Walkers, so I’m adding that to the tally!

14: Wins on Instagram. Instagram was my luckiest social channel - but only by a whisker. What’s more, half of my Instagram wins came from the advents, so it wasn’t a consistent source of good fortune. What is interesting, however, is that in contrast to my Facebook success, most of my Instagram wins came from simple comment/tag/regram prize draws. This highlights how much shorter the odds for no-effort comps can be, compared with, say, Facebook or Twitter. Indeed, three of those wins came from comps with under five entrants, while another one had less than ten. On Facebook, meanwhile, all of my wins required some degree of effort.

3: Total piggyback wins. I love piggyback wins! I’m talking, of course, about competitions where prizes are awarded to winning entrants AND their friends - a form of giveaway that I’ve observed most often on Instagram, though I’m sure exists elsewhere. In 2017, I got a free-ride on tea bags, a Corcicle canteen and about £50 of Bach flower remedies, thanks to my brilliant comping buddies - fingers crossed, they’ll get some payback in 2018!

1: Pointless skill learned. I can now flip a half-filled bottle of water. I am so 2015.

I hope you also got a chance to look at your prize spreadsheet in more detail during the festive season - let me know if you spotted any unanticipated patterns! 

Unboxing December 2017

I'm delighted to report that December turned out to be much more exciting than the last few months and I had real fun putting this month's video together. Of course, the inevitable homage to Monty Python may have had something to with that...

Best wishes for an awesome 2018!

The wider world in 2017

It’s that time of year again: the point when you’ll surely split your seams if you so much as think about tackling another competition - or am I thinking of mince pies?! In either case, it’s time for a cup of tea and nice sit down, while we reflect on what has happened in the wider world of comping this year.

My sole prediction for 2017 was that we’d probably be saying hello to Roady McRoadface. As ever, the inevitable came to pass. Specifically, a 10-block section of the I-80 in Salt Lake City was officially adopted by one Roady McRoadface in June this year.

Closer to home - by which I mean slightly closer to the world of comping - the highest-profile competition of the year was surely the raffle to win a truly unique, money-can’t-buy experience: a Valentine’s date with Idris Elba. (I confess, I did think of entering, but didn’t want my wife to get jealous!) Bonus points were definitely scored for the video released alongside the campaign, where a room full of children advised Mr Elba how best to handle himself on said date.

Speaking of competitions I didn’t enter, it would be remiss of me not to mention one of the most eye-catching prizes of the year: an 8-foot bust of Jeremy Clarkson. Kudos to the winner for finding one of the lowest-entry comps of the year!

I’ll be honest, I also didn’t enter the South Park ‘I am the Fart’ competition, which required entrants to submit a video of them breaking wind. Much as I fancied being flown to San Francisco to have my Bronx cheer made into 'the official in-game fart' for the latest South Park video game, I'm sad to say that the voting element of the comp hit a real bum note…

Finally, that leaves the lamentable tale of the prankster who, on at least two occasions, convinced members of the public to lick the feet of complete strangers in the hope of winning an imaginary £3000 prize. In the first case, this was in addition to letting Poundworld staff draw on their faces and ride them like ponies. That the Iceland staff merely had to hide under tables and pretend to be vacuum cleaners seems pretty mild by comparison.

There's probably a lesson to be learned from that last story, but I think my tea needs topping up. Oh, and did someone mention mince pies?

What were your favourite comping stories from 2017? Let me know in the comments below!

2017: How was it for you?

Now that it’s all over but the unboxing, it’s time for a quick glance back at the last 12 months.

For me, it’s been a year of two halves. By April, I’d won a GoPro camera, four bikes and VIP tickets to watch Norwich City play - prizes with a grand ticket price in the region of £1900. At that point, In needed only to maintain a win rate of £70 per month for the rest of the year and I’d have beaten my personal best.

Sadly, my form took a dip, and my blue period gave my mojo a good roasting. Although I’ve since recovered, that hasn’t translated to the same kind of luck as last year, when I averaged a win every other day in December. That’s not to be a moaning minnie - I still managed about two a week (although three of those were in America, so it’ll be a while before I see those wins - if at all!).

More than anything else, though, my 2017 is going to go down as the year of the sublime and the ridiculous. It’s the year I won cologne from both Paul Smith and Peperami; a £100 voucher to spend at Amazon and a coupon for a bottle of Lucozade that ended up costing four pence to redeem; an awesome flannel shirt for my lad and, for me, a hoodie from a peddler of online smut.

Be honest - which would you rather have?

Still, it’s the utter randomness of the draw that keeps the game interesting. Sure, you can shorten your odds, and develop that luck muscle, but unless you can find a competition with no other entrants, the result, like so much in life, could go in any direction. And if you’re lucky enough to find a competition with no other entrants, there’s a good chance it’ll be pretty niche - at least, that’s how I ended up with a beanie hat advertising cattle disinfectant.

The other notable development this year has been my minor success as a piggy-back winner.
I don’t know if there’s an official term for this mode of winning, but I’m talking about giveaways where the entry mechanic requires compers to tag a friend or two, and prizes are awarded not just to the winning entrant but also their friends. This mechanic is great for a whole bunch of reasons. Most obviously, it adds a random-act-of-kindness to the prize-giving - I love that for some folks, the prize will come completely out of the blue. Simply put, it’s a fantastic way for promoters to foster brand sentiment (and in my case, provide a little mojo boost).

In fact, I’ve had three such mojo boosts this year, having won teabags, a Corcicle canteen and a bunch of flower remedies thanks to my lovely comping buddies, Lorna and Rebecca. (This is the point where I call for a virtual team hug, topped off with seasonal high-fives, and, what the hell, finger pistols too!)

But I’d hate for the rest of y’all to feel left out - drop us a comment below to let everyone know how your year has gone, and I'll chuck you an attaboy as you collect your mince pie!

I hope you have a lovely (and restful) Christmas!

Unboxing September/October 2017

This is so late, it's almost a throwback. Nevertheless, I promised I would bring my unboxing up to date and so I have!

(Spoiler: contains 1x sur-prize!)

The message

Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to lose my head
It's like a jungle sometimes
It makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under
(Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, 1982)

I’m not usually one for prefacing my posts with hip hop lyrics, but in this instance I really couldn’t not.

For starters, you may have noticed the absence of posts these last few weeks. That’s because I haven’t been well. I’m not talking about the stomach bug that my youngest brought home from school (although, to be fair, it wasn’t a net contributor to my mojo), but rather the clashing episodes of exhaustion, stress and depression. I also developed a corn.

I hope you’ll forgive the lack of further detail here. I’m perfectly happy to discuss my mental health (or my corn) with anyone with a vaguely passing interest, but as this blog is supposed to be a permanent record of the positive things in my life, I’d prefer to take that offline. For the sake of this post, however, it's quite sufficient to know that November was rotten.

Generally speaking, I find prize-winning to be a great way to kick-start the endorphins. Of course, the fly in that ointment was that my comping flatlined in October, meaning that the number of treats heading my way could be counted on the fingers of one tennis ball.

On the plus side, however, there was always my corn to contend with.

Two years of wearing the same footwear around the house, day in, day out, had taken its toll. My left foot cried ‘Hold, Enough!’, giving me no option but to re-shoe it.

Normally, that would mean one more chore to add to the list. Happily though, I had in anticipation of such drama stashed away a pair of suede Pumas that I won back in 2015. The promoter? One Grandmaster Flash.

I’ve no idea how I stumbled upon this competition, but it was great and bad in equal measure: great because there weren’t many entrants, but bad because the entry mechanic was highly flawed.

To enter, you had to guess Flash’s five favourite hip hop records. The answers weren’t hard to find - everything you needed to know was in his recent Twitter feed; the problem was that most of the songs weren’t hip hop!

I figured that this wasn’t the time to split hairs, so I fed the promoter the songs listed on Twitter and crossed my fingers. Happily it was the right call.

The story didn’t end there, however. I knew the prize comprised a Puma track-top and trainers; I also knew that (for reasons not shared with me) it was going to take considerably longer than the average four weeks for the prize to arrive. Eventually, all became clear: the prize was not being handled by the Puma marketing team, but rather by Flash’s wardrobe crew! The jacket and shoes arrived in the UK with the rest of his tour gear. I'd won an official (and I’m pretty sure money-can’t-buy) Grandmaster Flash track-top!

Flash's back

To add to the craziness, they didn’t courier the prize to me. Rather, they hired a despatch driver to bring it from central London up to Norwich! I can’t imagine how much that cost, but I’m pretty sure it was more than the monetary value of the prize.

Two years have passed since then, and while trying not to lose my head has a more regular position on my to-do list, being physically able to enjoy the fruits of this hobby, even when I’m barely working at it, definitely helps me keep from going under.

How long have you waited for the right moment to appreciate a prize? Let me know in the comments below!