Onken Win a £10k Foodie Getaway

Learning to distinguish between instant win promotions that give you a good chance of winning – and those where the chance of a prize is tiny – is a skill that I’ve learnt after 25 years of comping. It involves reading a lot of T&Cs and looking for key words and phrases like ‘algorithm’, ‘available to be won’ or ‘winning moment’!

My least favourite type of instant win is an algorithmic instant win promotion. There are usually a set number of promotional packs produced (the ‘pack universe’), and a set number of prizes available to be won. Your chance of winning a prize with each entry you make is the pack universe divided by the advertised number of prizes. Generally less than 5% of prizes will be won – although sometimes it can be less than 1%. All advertised prizes will only be won if every single code from every promo pack is entered on the promotion website.

Onken & instant win algorithms

Onken certainly like an instant win promotion! They ran an algorithmic instant win back in 2017, advertising 50,000 Nutribullets to be won. Only 400 Nutribullets were given away, a tiny 1.25% of what was advertised on pack – at the time I spoke to BBC News about how misleading the advertising for this promotion was.

Since then, the ASA have published advice on how to ensure a promotion isn’t misleading consumers with exaggerated prize numbers. It looks like Onken have taken this guidance on board with the launch of their new instant win promotion. They’re still advertising 1000s of instant prizes, but this time they’ve made the odds of winning clear in the terms and conditions – and also added in a prize draw element to ensure they are guaranteed a big winner. In addition, the pots state that the prizes are ‘available’ to win – making it clear there’s no guarantee of the prizes being won. It’s an improvement, but still a very unpopular format!

What are the prizes?

The main prize, to be awarded in a prize draw at the end of the promotion, is a voucher for a holiday up to the value of £10,000 to be redeemed with Active Consultancy Ltd.

The 2,525 instant win prizes are:

• 300 Swan Retro 2 piece frying pan sets in black
• 200 Swan Retro 3 piece sauce pan sets in green
• 425 Swan 800W Retro Stand Mixers in cream
• 100 Swan Retro Scales in blue
• 1,500 Onken branded recycled cotton apron

How to enter the Onken instant win

• Buy a promotional pot of Onken Natural Set promotional yogurt
• Remove the card sleeve and find your unique 6 digit code
• Enter the code online at www.onkengetaway.com – you can only enter it once
• If you’ve won an instant prize, you’ll find out right away, and can complete your delivery details on screen (you’ll also receive a confirmation email)
• You’ll also go into the main prize draw for the £10,000 holiday!

Every entrant can also opt in to receive a discount of 20% off Swan Cookware.

The Onken promotion ends on 10 July 2022. Northern Ireland residents can enter without making a purchase by sending a postal entry – there’s full details in the T&Cs.

What are the odds of winning an instant prize?

Onken tell us in the T&Cs that there are 2,200,000 promotional packs, so with a total of 2,525 prizes, the chance of an instant win with every entry you make is 1-in-871 (for comparison, the chance of a prize in the current Le Rustique instant win is ten times better, at 1-in-86).

If we discount the apron prizes, the chance of winning one of the decent Swan prizes instantly is just 1-in-2,146.

Thankfully, algorithmic instant wins are much less popular than they used to be, with most brands opting for a winning moment promotion or multiple daily/weekly/monthly prize draws – in both these cases, all the advertised prizes should be won.

It’s certainly worth having a read of the T&Cs before you spend money on a product you usually wouldn’t buy, and figuring out what your chance of winning might be! You’ll find lots of advice in my post A Guide to Purchase Necessary Promotions.

Don’t forget you can see a list of current purchase necessary promotions on my Compers Shopping list, and you can sort them by format to see which ones use an algorithm – I mark them with a thumbs down icon!