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Surf Excel contest--An interesting contest or a marketing goof up?

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The IndiBlogger forum is now a read-only archive. Every public discussion is still here to read, but new topics and replies are closed.

Madhur Chadha
from Hyderabad |

With the results of surf excel still not out and no official date announced,are you guys still neutral on the topic?

Oh , i wont say i am not waiting for the results, I am but from a surf excel's perspective is this what they really wanted? Disappointing 200+ Bloggers?

So here is the scenario

No of posts to judge:230--No this is not Huge by any standards. Its a good number but not huge

So what the feeling we all are getting ? A company of size of Surf excel cannot even commit on the date of results of a blogging contest which has only 230 entries?

What could have been a good marketing activity is turning out to be a marketing goof up, marketing is all about how your company is percieved by the consumer. In this case their image is dented in eyes of 200+ Bloggers , i dont see how this is good.

I remember Dove, i just registered for a hamper and voila within a few days my parents back home got an amazing beautifully packed hamper . They loved it so much they wanted to buy a few more and gift it to people. They even spoke to some ppl expressing how good it was. Thats marketing.Thats professionalism atleast on that front. I know even their results are not out

But here? Oh come on Surf excel.....Whats taking soooo long.

@Indiblogger team--Is it too tough to ask companies to commit on date of results after they know how many entries are there?Its not that tough

Replies 1 to 7 of 7

DS
from Mumbai |

There might be delays in deciding the winners as companies like Surf do not host blogging contests everyday. It would take them time to judge the winners obviously.
But what is disheartening is that the Inditeam is not posting regularly here. They should keep us all in the loop, telling us the correct details of when the results can be expected.
Lets hope that they come out today!!

Madhur Chadha
from Hyderabad |

hope so :(

DS
from Mumbai |

Only thats in our hands...

RioZee
from Out of this yEt in this World |

Madhur, 230 entries are huge amount of entries. Not less. It's not a goofup in any manner. Every aspect is well calculated by them. Dove hamper surely was a great idea.

RioZee
from Out of this yEt in this World |

And another thing, the tens thousands of hits surf page on indi is getting ,for delayed result, is an added bonus. Their page rank and moz rank has shot up considerably,

RioZee
from Out of this yEt in this World |

And the dove page too.

Madhur Chadha
from Hyderabad |

well, even if it is huge, dont you think its atleast expected that they can estimate?

I agree on Moz rank thing ,but again thats not really an objective .What surf is looking at is creating a positive buzz around surf and establishing itself in minds of people especially bloggers and their readers

Whats happening can lead to unfavorable instances, small things do mattter, some people might associate surf with unprofessionalism...sort of dents their image.Thats my personal opinion

This also will lead to other things ...such as wen results are declared, people might not really agree with it.I agree detractors will be there but their voices will be more vocal and their numbers larger because of unsmooth manner this happened

sort of leaves a bad taste..i dont see hows that good

Madhur Chadha
from Hyderabad |

I love social media and  read a lot about how companies have  still not figured out how to capture social media.Its very difficult to make inroads and definitly not worth goofups .

Any small mis step can have major retribution from online communities, traditional marketing doesnt work.Here you get immidiate feedback

See for eg this

http://www.flickr.com/photos/developmentseed/sets/72057594122807084/

chevy tried a design your own ad..and see how people reacted, they used that platform for expressing disgust and anger

My fav 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/developmentseed/138841114/in/set-72057594122807084

http://www.flickr.com/photos/developmentseed/138840813/in/set-72057594122807084

they used their own platform to send a message of pollution amg global warming .....Not saying surf will suffer also..probably we will forget soon...but social media is a democratic platform..u never know ;)

Vivek Sheel
from New Delhi |

Hi Madhur, 

I agree with you to some extent. Surf Excel is taking time to announce results is understood but no clear communication from IB is a bit disheartening. The page views of Surf might not have increased that much compared to the hits IB is getting on its forum and contest page. 

Marketing campaigns can turtle at times and the perceived benefit might not occur owing to lapses or goof ups. Since this is a case of 250 odd bloggers it might not afffect them at the moment but similar delays in response times might have an impact in the longer run. The life cycle of a product and associated campaigns is shrinking very fast and firms have to be cognizant of this change.

Cheers !!

Ranjith
from hyderabad |

I fear that I might have to oppose you. First let me point out a few things regarding Dove. Even Dove wasn't too good in organising contests. There has been a big cry after the results were declared for 'Real Beauty' contest on the grounds that the topic wasn't too clear and was misleading. You can read more about it here: http://www.indiblogger.in/forum/topic.php?id=9005 And many haven't received the Dove hampers too and there has been no response from the IndiTeam regarding this matter http://www.indiblogger.in/forum/topic.php?id=11101 

Coming to the current contest, 200+ is definitely a large number of entries. And I don't think that they have the necessity to hold the results even after the judgement is done. The judges have to look deep into each and every entry and decide on the winners which would be acceptabel to everyone. And they can't do something like asking 20 judges to judge 10 entries each and select one winner from each random lot. They should have been a bit more specific on the results date but still mentioning shortly all the time is much better than extending the date a number of times.

Madhur Chadha
from Hyderabad |

Coming from a software background, maybe i am not able to grasp the concept of Shortly :)

I mean after we know how many blog posts are there ,if we say your project would be ready soon. I dont know when, but soon is not a very good sign 

Its ok to take more time but not declaring the timeline is something little uncmfortable for me.You can always say on or before so and so date, take a month or 2. But have a hard date. 

We indians are famed for Indian strchable time, i would love to see indiblogger break this sterotype but Sigh ;(..i dont think it can happen here.

If HUL cant declare a date for a small blogging contest ,i fear to say the sterotype will remain for some more time:(

Anyways the results have been declared,i went through some of the winning posts and they are awesome....respects and congratulations to the bloggers..

DS
from Mumbai |

how do you define shortly???

Its a very bad practice...