Extreme comping
Are you an extreme comper? Are you crazy enough to go the extra mile to try to win a prize?
Luckily, I am! I’ve learnt it’s a great way to win big prizes – go all out to embarrass yourself, and have a laugh doing it. It’s not just me though – lots of compers are willing to go for it if there’s a promise of a great reward (check out Paul, Linda & Fiona in my ‘Meet the Compers’ series for evidence!)
This morning I won a family holiday to Florida in Heart London’s #FacesforFlorida photo competition – they’re giving away a holiday every week day for FOUR WEEKS! It’s running until 28th January 2016 – see the details at promo.heart.co.uk/visitflorida. You need to print off masks of Emma Bunton & Jamie Theakston’s faces and wear them in the photo – be creative and original!
When it snowed on Sunday it took a little while to convince Rob and Ryland that we should head to the beach to do our entry – and indeed, on the radio today they said that our bravery had won us the prize. Ryland couldn’t stop laughing when I started stripping to my bikini – I was pleased I opted for the alligator to cover my midriff!
My other extreme comping successes…
How about prancing about to Kylie in my party frock to win £2000 of kitchen appliances?
Taking Ryland to the Asda jetwash won us £400 of cleaning products.
Dressing up as elves at the Lidl Christmas roadshow got us a shiny new TV (although Ryland wasn’t too impressed).
Doing the housework dressed as WonderWoman didn’t win me a Robot cleaner, but an edited version of my entry did win me £250 of SweatyBetty vouchers…
Doing the can can won me the chance to meet Raymond Blanc at his London restaurant – this photo got printed in the Metro too!
And the extreme comping that didn’t quite work out…
Dressing up as a banana didn’t win me £500 with Topfruit.
Turning a VW Tiguan into a mobile disco for a week didn’t win me a car.
Dressing up for Mecca’s Pink competition didn’t win me £1000 cash.
Doing a Wolverine impression outside the Nottingham branch of Yo!Sushi didn’t win me a holiday to Japan.
Dressing up as a swan didn’t win me £1000 with Pepsi’s 12 days of Christmas prize draw.
Sleeping on a Welsh beach didn’t win me £500 in the #WeirdestPlaceToSleep competition.
Recreating Psycho with Kitoko shampoo didn’t win me a car.
And finally, stripping to a Wonderwoman costume in under 12 seconds didn’t win me a Renault. Damn!
But you know what? It was so much fun creating all these entries – and that’s why I love comping so much!
What extremes have you gone to for a competition entry – and did you win? Tell me in the comments!
Loved looking at these again! My husband dressed up as Norman Wisdom dressed as a nurse and won us a cash comp – such good fun!
God I love all these pics so much! You have such a creative mind! This is the area I lack in (thinking up the ideas) even though I love photo and video comps!
Di you’re hilarious! I’m desperate to win a family holiday too so I’m going to take your advice and go the extra mile! Well done on winning your Florida competition, your little boy must be so excited!
I absolutely love your swan entry, when I’m disappointed not to do well in an effort comp I actually think of this entry as it is just so flippin’ good! I think my most extreme was for Laimon Fresh where I failed to win an iPad by dressing up as J-Lo and also making an outfit from green and yellow crepe paper. Virgin Tanuary was an interesting one too, I didn’t win but had such a laugh getting my husband to spray paint palm trees on my back with stencils (homemade!) and fake tan.
Well done Di, you are an inspiration and I do seem to getting more courage to be mad! Still not winning much but I do look back and laugh.
Keep on laughing Jackie – you’ll get a prize as a result soon!!
Congrats again Di! I certainly have been making a fool of myself over the last few years. I can’t seem to hit the winning formula just yet even on the ones I’m proud of. The creative wins I’ve had seem to have been on the ones that took the least effort! We do have a great time and I think our entries are pretty good but as your losing (!) ones prove you just have to keep trying. One good win will make all the effort worth it…I hope!
Ha ha!!!!! Love these Emma!
So many good entries! The most extreme thing I’ve ever done was trying to win a holiday in 2014 to Florida with Virgin. I put so much effort into it, even drove to a random field in the rain, pretending to be a TV presenter, and got a bucket of cold water thrown over me (on more than one occasion!) to add humour.. still didn’t work. The prize was for 2 adults and 2 children, and because I didn’t include children in my entry, I think it went against me, because the winner’s entry was, lets just say… not that creative (but it included children) – I aint no sore loser, I promise! 😉
I hope you can laugh about the experience now though!!! I dedicated a whole week to winning that VW – I lost, but it was such a laugh!!
I love the effort you go to for your competitions. I’m going to have a go at the Florida one tomorrow.
I tried really hard for the Cadbury Twisted comp a few years ago, i was the runner-up so didn’t win £20,000 but used one of the videos for another comp and won a trip to Rio. So it is possible to sometimes reuse images /videos.
Congratulations. You do have an extensive fancy dress wardrobe. The swan is brill, should have won with that one!
I’m hoping another swan photo competition might pop up one day….!
Well done winning the Florida holiday. Your entry is superb and you are so lucky having such a co-operative husband. I bet that entry took a bit of setting up. All your extreme entries are great and don’t just ‘happen’. You have to put the work in. You have nerves of steel you. Respect.
Ha ha! This was actually a fairly quick one – the time consuming part was blowing up the alligator. We had to be VERY quick at the beach so our fingers didn’t drop off in the cold!!
Reading this post really made me smile! I haven’t done anything really crazy yet but I only started this hobby in September! I need to flex my creative muscles
Love the swan one! It’s not extreme but I did climb into my freezer and sit there for a good 10 minutes to get a decent picture yesterday for the freezie competition…didn’t win 🙁
Ah, the freezie was a random draw – but you never know when you might need to use that photo again Jamie!!
i think you are just brilliant to be so proud of the winning entries and the non-winning entries. I have the terrible attitude that if i tried really hard and didn’t win then i ‘failed’ and i don’t feel so proud of the entry any longer. That attitude is gradually changing though as i know if i have done my best then i should be happy whatever the outcome. Well done on your win today! x
You were robbed in the Psycho competition!
I love that one – I’ve edited out the shampoo to use in other comps but no luck yet!!
Great Stuff Di!! You’ve definitely inspired me, its taken me 2 weeks to talk the hubby into participating with a Faces for Florida Entry and he is still having reservations, any tips on getting comping humbugs involved would be greatly appreciated!! 🙂
To be honest, my hubby takes some convincing. You have to prove to the humbugs that prizes CAN be won – so choose a small prize he would appreciate, and try and win it for him. Beer, books, tickets, a football – something that helps him see that people DO win stuff!