I want to talk about what’s wrong with “Best of” contests held my news/media outlets

I am a marketing professional of over 20 years, I’ve been around long enough to see the likes of many a shallow and superficial campaign sweep us all up in excitement, only to find out that it was all about generating revenue and not about benefitting the greater good of business. That’s what marketing is for though right? Yes and No- Marketing has many goals, converting leads is one, but it’s a bigger picture that involves educating consumers, attracting business, and communication between business and consumer.

Over the years I’ve seen many campaigns designed around awards in an attempt to garner revenue only as a goal. Here’s an example that is actually used often in the world of Marketing Agencies that I have unmasked and no longer participate in. Did you know that each year there are hundreds of marketing contests that accept submissions and hand out awards? National awards that seem to be coveted to the industry, we get postcards for them, emails, ads, begging us to submit our deserving work to be recognized.

In order to enter these contests there is a hefty fee,  to the tune of hundreds of dollars. Ok, no big deal, there are entry fees for lots of things.

When you win, (shocker by the way: almost EVERYONE is a winner) you must pay a fee to be included in the promotional materials, you won right, so now you should be sure to pay us to be included in our magazines and materials?

Oh and then don’t forget to order your winning trophy, certificates, and merch!

I wish to stop here and break to you the bad news, and expose these contests for what they are, money making schemes.

They don’t promote your business, they don’t generate leads, they don’t do anything but suck you dry of hundreds of dollars you could have spent on a decent campaign to actually accelerate yourself.

Now can we talk about the more localized “Carols Best” contest that I spent the better half of two months assisting local businesses with. Carroll’s Best is hosted by the Carroll County Times, owned by the Baltimore Sun, and each year hosts a nominating form and voting form that allows the general public to vote for their favorite businesses.

I am a business owner, I work for businesses owners, I live and breathe helping small businesses grow and thrive. When I find such a flawed marketing opportunity that has been going on for so long, about as long as I have been in the industry, I feel like we have to talk about it.

Let’s pause for a second.

I want to discuss the flaws and the issues so that they we can shed light and fix what’s wrong. I want to continue to see this community activity go on.

But it has to be about the businesses and not about selling ads.

I understand better than anyone that the newspaper needs to generate revenue too, im not saying that their time and effort in putting something together shouldn’t be rewarding for them, but the system is flawed and they need to do better.

Inclusivity

My favorite store to shop in is target. I think many of you would agree, if you get to pick a store to go on a shopping trip you may choose a target. But if you asked me to vote for my favorite shopping spot in Carroll County, I’m voting for Manor of Thyme or Tom’s Cabin, because those are the local businesses that I shop at that we should be talking about. These contests were never designed to promote big business and franchise; it was always supposed to be about the little local guy.

This year the winner of Carroll County’s best burger… Was Five guys; a huge nationwide chain.  Now I know what your thinking: “but Five Guys has my favorite burger.” Ok, except there is NO FIVE GUYS IN CARROLL COUNTY ANYMORE!

That’s right, the first place winner is not only a corporation but also a business that doesn’t even exist here.

I like to think that the original purpose of “Carroll’s Best” was always to highlight small local businesses, so when we start talking about who won Carroll’s Best Coffee our first and second place winners were, drum roll…

There shouldn’t be a category for best coffee and best independent coffee, the best coffee in Carroll County is NOT at Starbucks and Dunkin’, not to mention those companies in their fiscal year last year dropped 258.8 million dollars on advertising and marketing. I wonder how much JeannieBird or Pork and Beans had available in their budget? We shouldn’t be including these larger corporations in this localized contest in the first place.

If you thought it ended with the coffee category you are wrong, Popeye’s, Chick-fil-a, Texas roadhouse, and Royal Farms take winning or honorable mention rolls in several food categories.

Inclusivity is important, but so is running something with purpose and honor, let’s let big business have TV, Radio, Billboards, Direct Mail, and about a million other channels where they can pump their millions, let’s let the little guy have the local newspaper for goodness sake.

Mis-catagorizing

This is such a ridiculous issue that I had to make up a word for it. There are several businesses that aren’t even correctly represented in the categories, some of which employees and owners even publically apologize for. The winner for best golf course, is NOT a golf course. The winner for best Sign shop is NOT a sign shop.

While I understand that user error plays into this, you can’t help when voters are confused about what categories their favorite businesses should be represented, there is an easy fix.

It’s called regulation. There is after all a nomination period, who is in charge of going through the nominations? Where is the regulation of these categories and nominations happening? I hate to say it but either someone has dropped the ball on researching and doing due diligence here, or there simply isn’t anyone whose role it is to even check this information, which is my guess.

Lack of Representation

I can rattle off about 50 this year that were not even included and should have been, it’ such a shame that year after year we make recommendations on additions to the” Best of” Categories that are time and time again just ignored. At the very least a write in option would be a great addition for those of us who might feel left out service industry-wise. Again the main issue here is more than likely a lack of anyone whose role it is to make this better.

We Feel Taken Advantage of

If this contest really is about helping small businesses, let me ask why advertising for it is at such a level where most small businesses can not afford to even promote a win. The clients I represent that won or received an honorable mention were all presented with the option to advertise. Not to be outdone in the shadiness of it all, the newspaper double dipped on them asking is they would pay for ads in both the nominating period and the winner’s edition.

Let me just drop this pricing guide here for you to take a look at, because all but two of my clients could afford the smallest ad.

Maybe if we are focusing on the betterment of the community and the promotion of small and local businesses we could build a better model that was slightly more affordable. As an example, I will often offer certain clients the ability to spread out payments or discounts in order to help them get what the need and deserve.

It broke my heart to see business owners who worked so hard all year be nominated and win something but couldn’t celebrate with an ad once they saw the pricing. While I’m not trying to suck food from the mouths of the media outlets, I do think this is a promo that could be adjusted to better suit it’s winners.

The bottom line that the contest is flawed, it’s turned into a money maker over a way to help the small business community, and the Baltimore Sun and Carroll County Times should try to do better.