Recently, I was hesitant to use any question with negative connotations – just not to contribute to the “naturally occurring” negativity of these times. But I hope that this topic is light enough not to stir any unpleasant feelings. And I still feel a surge of positivity brought by the last week’s Saturday Question topic – thank you hajusuuri and everybody who participated.
Saturday Question #54:
Which Giveaways Do You Not Participate?
How do you feel about giveaways? Is there any type of giveaways where you do not participate on principle? Or are there any conditions that you wouldn’t want to meet? Why?
My Answer
If you were wondering what brought out this topic, I got annoyed by conditions of a giveaway on one of the makeup-related YouTube channels that I watch. In addition to the regular and expected “to be a subscriber” and “to leave a contact information,” strangely there was a question based on the content of the video. I’m not sure I would have entered this giveaway otherwise, but that now-children-what-is-the-secret-word-type question just completely irked me. It’s not a “who names it first competition.” It’s not a closed submission where each person will submit either the right or the wrong answer. It’s an open public forum where once the first person publishes the answer, whoever is there just to throw the hat in the ring does not need to watch the video to enter the giveaway. And loyal subscribers who usually watch those videos for the content itself should feel quite stupid pretending that they are answering the question on their own without reading the previous 50 answers. At least I would have. So, I didn’t enter the giveaway.
But that prompted my thinking about this topic in general. So, that’s what I came up with:
- I do not participate in draws if I suspect that results will/might be rigged. I won’t name names, but there was a blog that I caught once on falsifying results. I haven’t participated in any giveaways there since.
- I do not participate if I think that the requirements are stupid (as in my example above), “not proportional” to the prize offered (follow me, follow the brand, share on FB or IG story, tag N friends, etc. – and all that to get a sample of perfume you’ve never heard of before from a brand you don’t know) or unreasonable (releasing IP rights to your creation by submitting it as an entry into the competition/giveaway).
- I do not participate if I think that somebody else should get a chance to win (e.g., even if I could use one more free sample of perfume I tried and liked but not ready to commit yet, if it’s a private giveaway by a blogger or perfumer, not by a brand, I wouldn’t try to get it).
- I do not usually go for a giveaway of a full bottle of something I do not like and want already because with the number of perfumes in my collection and the success rate of testing new perfumes, I just don’t have any space for bottles that I won’t use.
Now it’s your turn.