Friday 7 December 2012

Friday rant - Congratulations, you haven't won!

If you have ever entered a competition,  you have probably held out hope of winning right up until the moment you know it couldn't possibly be you because it was somebody else. So it is good to be notified of who has won, because you can give up hope (or maybe if you are really lucky, celebrate) then move on to the next one.

So why do so many promoters raise our hopes then dash them again with their emails to entrants? They send them out with subject lines like

  • Congratulations winner!
  • Winner announced!
  • Winner's news!
  • Competition Winner!
Once you open the email, you probably need to visit the website to see that you are NOT the winner, you are just being told who has won. And at the same time, are being offered, as a special privilege for having lost, a 5% discount on something you could have had a 10% discount on if you'd gone through a voucher codes website.

The danger is that we will get so used to receiving emails like this that we will delete, unread, all emails suggesting in the title that we have won something.......even when we HAVE. 

Why can' t promoters be less misleading and use subjects like
  • Competition results
  • Non-winners discount
  • Sorry you didn't win but....
I'm linking this up to Ranty Friday over at Mummy Barrow


6 comments :

  1. It is truly heart breaking when I have that kind of email. It's happening more often lately! I can't take this amount of disappointment at Christmas!

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  2. Those types of emails drive me mad and they are becoming so more common than they used to be. I actually think companies are evil sending email titled competition winner then you find you have not won at all and I think the discount they include in the emails is an insult

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  3. YES YES YES. I get this with a chocolate company every month. You open the email only to find you are not on the list.

    I hate it

    It is like snatching it away in the time it takes to open the mail!

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  4. I hate this - I'd much prefer a sorry you didn't win email - why dash our hopes!

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  5. Yep - very annoying. There's also a certain prize site that sends emails with "RE:" when we all know that that's normally someone emailing you back. Good news maybe? Errr no

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  6. Couldn't agree more, anything like this ends up in my spam now. Can't be doing with the disappointment on a weekly basis!

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