When I went to McDonald’s awhile back, they were running a contest. But instead of instantly finding out that you won or lost, the drink cup had a code on it that you were supposed to send in a text message or go online to find out what, if anything, you won.
Twenty ounce soda bottles now try the same tricks. I miss the days when you could redeem the cap for a free drink without having to go to some website and enter a code.
Additionally, some stores are issuing receipts where you can win a prize by calling a number or visiting a website to take a survey.
I think companies may be doing this for two reasons:
- By requiring people to go to a web site, they might think they are engaging their customer in some valuable way
- Similar to mail-in rebates, they know that many people won’t bother to take the required action so they save money with the breakage of unclaimed prizes
I find these hi-tech contests mildly annoying.