what would you do for a BB10 Contest

Im not at all trying to be a debbie downer or sore loser here but has anyone else noticed that the winning entries so far haven't really been all that interest gaining? I thought the point of the challenge was to get people excited about Blackberry10. The video's 'I've seen so far are ok, I just don't see how they're getting other people excited about BlackBerry10.
1 A tattoo that no one will ever see
2 Paper cranes with no real connection to BlackBerry10
3 A woman dressed in a WHITE gown with a small sash that reads BlackBerry10 walking through an almost deserted a mall

I know Im coming off negatively but I'm a little disappointed so far. I just thought the idea was to do something crazy that would hype people up and take notice and get people as excited as we are. Anyhow, best of luck to all the potential winners so far.








The hype up for this contest was pretty exciting and I just feel a little let down at the selections so far I guess. Sorry for being such a negative Nancy.

...and your point in bringing this up is...?

@stacym75 - You're totally being a Debbie Downer, a negative Nancy and a sore loser. :)

I don't think you've grasped the point of contest fully. It's an expression of an individual's excitement for BlackBerry 10. Individuals are so excited they're willing to do **anything** for a BlackBerry device. Things they normally wouldn't do. Things that may be crazy. May take a lot of work. Etc.

It's not about marketing BlackBerry 10 or educating people on the features of BlackBerry 10. If you're on this site, watching the videos and reading the posts, you already know that stuff and that's what we're doing everyday with every story we post. An event and contest like this is to show our readers, and more importantly people beyond our site, that BlackBerry has a big fan base of loyal users. And the contest works. With the entries we have posted so far, we've already received tons of emails and I've given several interviews to major outlets about the contest. Search around the internet right now and you're starting to see a lot of postive BlackBerry articles be written as BlackBerry 10 launches, and a lot of those articles are referring to the loyal fan base that BlackBerry has. Contests like this are what establish that reputation. People at RIM love the contest. Heck, we've seen carriers re-post the videos on their employee intranet sites. When people see others excited for BlackBerry -- as these videos express -- it gets others excited.

When it comes to how we pick the winners, if you read the rules you'll know and understand that we don't quite know what we're going to get. People don't submit the videos and then we pick our favorites. It's the opposite. People submit IDEAS... and based on the ideas executed, then we pick the ten we want to see executed. Once an idea is selected, the person has already won. Then we contact them and they follow through with the idea - they execute on the vision they submitted. Then when they hand it in, we post it. When it comes to picking ideas, we pick a RANGE of winners. Crazy stuff. Artistic stuff. Hard work stuff. If we just picked crazy, we could have ten videos we with people getting tattoos (probably had 50 people who said they'd get a tattoo this time around). So we mix it up for the ten videos. And why do we mix it up? To show the diversity and range of the BlackBerry faithful. It really is a big mix!

So that's that. You can feel free to not like it, but I just wanted to clarify how much of a success this contest has already been... and we still have plenty of videos left to post.

I appreciate the fact that you decided to clarify yourself Kevin, but your approach is a tad harsh, but thanks for painting me as a sore loser when all I was really doing is voicing an opinion. Other then explain why you think your contest is working you've succeeded to isolate someone who has not only supported your site but even promoted it within her own social circles, for simply voicing an opinion about a contest. I apologize if this is coming off just as harsh your reply but I'm a little shocked. I work in the social media department for one of the largest marketing companies in Canada. As such I am called to respond to many customers' not so positive posts and concerns. I suppose this is why Im surprised at your choice of words. My expectations as far as a reply from the 'top guy' are normally a little higher. I digress.

As someone who is really excited about BB10, I guess I'm just going to have to simply restate that Im disappointed with what I've seen so far. If the idea was to show OTHERS that BB10 has a huge fan base, I haven't seen that in any of the videos.That's my opinion and my perception. I honestly thought that the ideas would be a lot more creative and exciting. If I come across as a sore loser, so be it.

All the best Kevin.

@Thunderbuck, my point was to use this forum to express my disappointment in a contest that was initiated by the web site on which the forum belongs. Is that ok with you?

Originally Posted by stacym75

I appreciate the fact that you decided to clarify yourself Kevin, but your approach is a tad harsh, but thanks for painting me as a sore loser when all I was really doing is voicing an opinion. Other then explain why you think your contest is working you've succeeded to isolate someone who has not only supported your site but even promoted it within her own social circles, for simply voicing an opinion about a contest. I apologize if this is coming off just as harsh your reply but I'm a little shocked. I work in the social media department for one of the largest marketing companies in Canada. As such I am called to respond to many customers' not so positive posts and concerns. I suppose this is why Im surprised at your choice of words. My expectations as far as a reply from the 'top guy' are normally a little higher. I digress.

As someone who is really excited about BB10, I guess I'm just going to have to simply restate that Im disappointed with what I've seen so far. If the idea was to show OTHERS that BB10 has a huge fan base, I haven't seen that in any of the videos.That's my opinion and my perception. I honestly thought that the ideas would be a lot more creative and exciting. If I come across as a sore loser, so be it.

All the best Kevin.

@Thunderbuck, my point was to use this forum to express my disappointment in a contest that was initiated by the web site on which the forum belongs. Is that ok with you?

what is your idea of a good entry/winner??

At this point, it doesn't matter.

Yo what CB Kevin said. I preferred the cranes as it had tradition and the user did something rather than being needled! :D

By the way. I love Canada. It's like the US without the negativ bits! :p



Sent from my BlackBerry 9780 using Tapatalk

Agree with stacym75 regarding the treatment of people on CB. I see more harsh comments than friendly comments when a person is voicing their opinion in a good manner. The person is fully respecting all the effort that has gone towards the contest, with just a constructive criticism. Rather than taking the opinion in future considerations or just explaining the process, she was branded as a "loser" first before any other explanation.
I, and maybe others, expect a little more friendly atmosphere from the top brass.

@stacy.... you missed the meaning of my smiley face. :)

When I put that at the end of sentence, it negates what I'm saying with the words that precede it.... AKA... I wasn't actually calling you a sore loser, debbie downer, negative nancy... those were all words and phrases you used in your post, and I was quoting you... with a smiley. I didn't actually think that... your words. Notice no smiley here?

But if I say you're a sore loser! :) Well, the smiley means I'm joking. Seriously. I thought that was clear. My bad.

When it comes to a contest like this, it'll NEVER be perfect. I'm not sure if you looked back at the What Would You Do for a BlackBerry Storm? Contest, but that was what this contest was based off of. We ran that contest in 2008. It was a huge success. Yes, it's not perfect... as mentioned above we have to work with what we get, and there's always going to be some uncertainty in it... weaker submissions, and better ones, but we roll with it. We don't fret on it. With any type of contest like this, you're going to get some people who don't like the winning entries, who wish their entry would have been picked instead, etc. Maybe in some cases there should have been different entries, etc. But we have to roll with it. We chose to do this contest again for BlackBerry 10, because it was such an epic contest last time. So the format is set. We've done a lot of other epic contests over the years... Super Fanboy contest, I Love BlackBerry contest, etc., and no matter what when we run those contests, I also see a few posts like this pop up, complaining one way or another about some aspect of the contest. You can't please everybody. But overall the contests are awesome and we roll with it.

So the bottom line is... would people rather we didn't run a contest? Because that's the only other option.. We can either run a contest as best as we can, that'll never be quite perfect, or we can just do nothing. I for one, hate doing nothing. So I'm ok with a few people not being happy... so long as the overall population appreciates what we're doing, which is the case here.

I think the concept is great and the way that winners are choosen is spot on, and I quite like the entries posted thus far.

all I will say in Stacy's defence is that I am quite sure that the submissions sounded better on paper (metaphorically speaking) than the finished videos demonstrate.....

and in defence of the winners.... these people don't have Hollywood or a company media department authoring these videos... they are created using social media, probably using BlackBerry hardware, which I think gives it an added dimension... and imagine how much better it could have been using bb10 story maker.

it is not up to Crackberry to market BB10.. that's RIMs job.. CB provide an outlet for us 'enthusiasts' to show our support and occassionly win something shiny and new.

Originally Posted by stacym75

I appreciate the fact that you decided to clarify yourself Kevin, but your approach is a tad harsh, but thanks for painting me as a sore loser when all I was really doing is voicing an opinion. Other then explain why you think your contest is working you've succeeded to isolate someone who has not only supported your site but even promoted it within her own social circles, for simply voicing an opinion about a contest. I apologize if this is coming off just as harsh your reply but I'm a little shocked. I work in the social media department for one of the largest marketing companies in Canada. As such I am called to respond to many customers' not so positive posts and concerns. I suppose this is why Im surprised at your choice of words. My expectations as far as a reply from the 'top guy' are normally a little higher. I digress.

As someone who is really excited about BB10, I guess I'm just going to have to simply restate that Im disappointed with what I've seen so far. If the idea was to show OTHERS that BB10 has a huge fan base, I haven't seen that in any of the videos.That's my opinion and my perception. I honestly thought that the ideas would be a lot more creative and exciting. If I come across as a sore loser, so be it.

All the best Kevin.

@Thunderbuck, my point was to use this forum to express my disappointment in a contest that was initiated by the web site on which the forum belongs. Is that ok with you?

After seeing this response I had to go back and re-read Kevin's response. I thought he simply clarified how the contest was run. I didn't see him being harsh at all - with the exception of the first line where he was joking by quoting you.

I can understand how someone might foresee some grand possibilities in the contest and then be disappointed in not seeing them fulfilled. Personally I couldn't even think of anything to enter except possibly a polar plunge (and with the way the temp went this week I thank my guardian Angel I didn't enter it). But it must be remembered that these winners are regular folks. They aren't trying to market BB. Just an achievable goal that will catch the Crackberry Teams attention.

I am sincerely sorry you felt you got a harsh response. I hope you don't let this experience turn you off of the awesome community here at Crackberry.

@OP

...so, you're disappointed in the contest entries... and your disappointment is so profound that it merits a forum thread all to itself? Really?

If you had a better idea, maybe you should have submitted it.

@Thunderbuck...Are you really that daft?

Originally Posted by Kevin Michaluk

@stacy.... you missed the meaning of my smiley face. :)

When I put that at the end of sentence, it negates what I'm saying with the words that precede it.... AKA... I wasn't actually calling you a sore loser, debbie downer, negative nancy... those were all words and phrases you used in your post, and I was quoting you... with a smiley. I didn't actually think that... your words. Notice no smiley here?

But if I say you're a sore loser! :) Well, the smiley means I'm joking. Seriously. I thought that was clear. My bad.

When it comes to a contest like this, it'll NEVER be perfect. I'm not sure if you looked back at the What Would You Do for a BlackBerry Storm? Contest, but that was what this contest was based off of. We ran that contest in 2008. It was a huge success. Yes, it's not perfect... as mentioned above we have to work with what we get, and there's always going to be some uncertainty in it... weaker submissions, and better ones, but we roll with it. We don't fret on it. With any type of contest like this, you're going to get some people who don't like the winning entries, who wish their entry would have been picked instead, etc. Maybe in some cases there should have been different entries, etc. But we have to roll with it. We chose to do this contest again for BlackBerry 10, because it was such an epic contest last time. So the format is set. We've done a lot of other epic contests over the years... Super Fanboy contest, I Love BlackBerry contest, etc., and no matter what when we run those contests, I also see a few posts like this pop up, complaining one way or another about some aspect of the contest. You can't please everybody. But overall the contests are awesome and we roll with it.

So the bottom line is... would people rather we didn't run a contest? Because that's the only other option.. We can either run a contest as best as we can, that'll never be quite perfect, or we can just do nothing. I for one, hate doing nothing. So I'm ok with a few people not being happy... so long as the overall population appreciates what we're doing, which is the case here.

Again, I appreciate your reply and I do understand where you're coming from Kevin: I always did. I was not aware that one could write something and then put a :) after it to negate it. I'll keep that in mind. I just wanted to ask the community here if anyone else felt the same sort of let down about the efforts and winning entries so far.

I would also like to point out that I am in no way perturbed that an entry I did or did not make was NOT selected. It has nothing to do with that at all. (no smiley face, so it must be true). I am saying that I was expecting to see a little more creativity and was so excited to see who would do what after watching the video you posted to announce the contest. I was not expecting hollywood studio quality or anything like that. As you said, you have what you have and you're working with it, that's great.

I wish all the potential winners the best of luck and remain overjoyed at the thought that there are only 4 sleeps until Jan 30th.

Take care