Meet The Compers: Naomi Cearns

I’m excited to introduce the latest guest for Meet The Compers! This time I’m chatting to Naomi Cearns, who you might know from the fab A Little Friendly Competition podcast she hosts with fellow comper Sophie Cowling. Naomi has had some fabulous wins from her creative photos, loves to involve her family and pets with comping – and is also a regular radio winner! Read on to hear her inspiring stories and top tips…

How did you first start comping?

When I was little I used to enter all of the competitions in my favourite magazines and the kids sections of the newspaper. I used to win regularly – things like tickets to local events, merchandise, stationery, and that sort of thing. I once won an enormous teddy bear which was bigger than me by guessing its birthday! All those little wins definitely gave me the bug, but as I got older I gave it up, and then we moved abroad for many years. When we got back from living in Switzerland I decided to enter a few web entry competitions. Funnily enough I won the first one I entered – a pair of tickets to a craft fair at the NEC in Birmingham. And around the same time I met Sophie who introduced me to the world of social media comping and the Lucky Learners facebook group. And the rest is history!

What are your favourite competition websites, forums or resources?

I subscribe to both Compers News and the Lucky Legends forum which are my go-to places to find competitions. I also browse the ending today section of Competition Database when I have time. Nothing quite beats doing your own search for a prize you really want to win though – I recently won an iPhone 15 in a competition on X which had only had 7 entries! Instagram is still my favourite platform – once the algorithms kick in my feed is absolutely full of competitions. I have 3 different Instagram accounts – my main account, my home account, and my outdoorsy account, and all of them are focused on winning different types of prizes, and the algorithms know this – they do the hard work for me!

How much time do you dedicate to comping each day?

I have a pretty relaxed comping routine as I work full time, and have two children, two bunny rabbits and a dog to keep me busy! I think of it as a fun and rewarding hobby and I don’t beat myself up if I don’t get round to entering any competitions for a few days, or miss out on entering a creative competition because I haven’t had the time to dedicate to it. There’s always more prizes to be won so I look to the next thing I can enter instead. On a typical day I’ll do half an hour of comping once the kids have left for school, then will enter a few comps at lunch time while I’m out walking the dog, and then maybe an hour or two in the evening while I’m relaxing. For a creative entry I will spend more time on the weekend putting something together or taking photos and editing them.

Tell us the funny story of how you and Sophie first met!

Ha! It’s funny how fate works, it was actually a pair of pyjamas that brought us together! I’d recently moved back to England and was having a clear out. I listed a pair of kids PJs on a facebook selling group and Sophie came over to buy them! We got chatting and realised we had a lot in common so we kept in touch. Then a few months later while she was over at mine for coffee Sophie mentioned that she liked to enter competitions! Seven years later we re-told the story of how we met on our podcast and Sophie revealed that the pyjamas never even fitted her son. I’m still so glad she decided to buy them or we’d never have met!

You and Sophie are planning a European break together soon, will that be your first trip away together? How did you win it?

Shein recently ran a very generous Instagram competition where they gave away tickets to anywhere in the world (up to a value of £400). There were lots of winners and I was one of those lucky ones. I decided to use my prize for Sophie and I to go to Bergen in Norway. It’s our first overseas break together – compers on tour! We’ve done some prize stacking and are using Sophie’s hotel voucher prize to cover our accommodation, and my airport lounge pass win to start the holiday off in style!

What inspired you to start your podcast, A Little friendly Competition?

Before we started our podcast I have to admit that I’d never listened to a podcast before! I LOVE them now though! It was 2023 and Sophie had discovered podcasts and came to me with the idea of us doing one all about comping as there was nothing similar out there. I agreed that it was a great idea, but we didn’t get our acts together for another year – we just kept putting it off month after month. Then in January 2024 we both won mega prizes – Sophie won £5000 cash and £5000 for a charity of her choice on Instagram with Debenhams, and I won a holiday to Bali on a web entry competition with Cobra beer! We thought the universe was telling us to start that podcast, so we jumped right in!

You’ve won some lovely holiday prizes, can you share your favourites and tell us how you won them?

Thank you – travelling is my favourite thing to do and I feel so grateful to have won quite a few holidays! My first holiday win was an incredible 7 day trip to Disneyworld in Florida which I won with Heart Radio (I’ll tell you more about that later as it’s one of my favourite wins).

I’ve also won a 7 night holiday to Rhodes in a head-to-head quiz on Capital Radio. I was incredibly shocked to win the Fruit Shoot “Win your Child’s Dream Thing” winning moments competition a couple of years ago, and the fantastic prize fulfilment team helped us to create our dream holiday to Abu Dhabi – we visited Warner Bros world, Seaworld, and went on a desert safari! I’ve already mentioned the epic trip to Bali I won on a web entry competition, and just a few months ago I won another web entry holiday competition – this time a very fancy holiday to St Lucia with AllBright and Citizen Femme – we’re going for my husband’s birthday next March and the total value of that holiday is £16,000! Funny story about that though, I very nearly forfeited the prize as I missed the winning email!

I’ve also won some lovely UK breaks – lots of London stays which my kids love, a boating holiday on the Norfolk Broads ( a Nestle purchase necessary win), and £2000 Canopy & Stars voucher by creating a jungle themed fort, and recently a £500 cottages voucher!

You’re successful at Instagram comping – what tips can you give compers for taking great photos?

Ahh, thank you! Even with the comment bans and Instagram cheats scuppering our chances it’s still my most successful platform. My main tips would be to take photos in natural daylight, to experiment with holding your camera or phone at different angles (overhead, side on) to get a unique perspective, and just keep taking lots and lots of photos to find your own taste and style. I wish Instagram would leave the reels to Tiktok and go back to photos! There’s also some great apps for editing photos – Snapseed is free and very straightforward to use.

Is there a type of competition you have the most success in?

Over the years I’ve had most success with creative competitions. I think if a competition requires you to go that little bit further than just tagging a friend or filling in an online form then there’s a better chance at winning. A couple of years ago Ocado ran a promotion to create one of Nigella Lawson’s recipes using only Ocado ingredients. There were less than a hundred entries and of those a few were disqualified for not purchasing all of the ingredients from Ocado. Luckily I’d followed the rules to the letter and was thrilled to win £5000 worth of Ocado vouchers!

At the end of last year I also won a year’s worth of Levi’s (£3250 worth of vouchers!) by taking a photo in store wearing a pair of their jeans. If a competition requires you to go that extra mile I always say go for it! Other memorable wins from creative entries include an entire camping kit worth over £2000 from a “pillow fort” photo, a go-pro from a judged photo competition, £2000 Canopy & Stars voucher plus a £500 Wayfair voucher with my jungle-themed den, a bell tent won by creating some AI artwork, and lots of pet prizes from cute pet photos including having my dog named as the face of Dogstival!

I also have a lot of success on my different Instagram accounts in those random “tag a friend” competitions. I have a home account (@onelittlebungalow) which is very good at winning home related prizes! I’ve managed to completely redecorate and refurnish my house from Instagram wins – it’s quite funny now because if anyone comes over and says “oh I like your coffee table” or “I like that painting on your wall” my standard reply is always “I won it!”

Which winning competition entry are you most proud of?

It has to be my Millenium Fal-car which won my family an all expenses paid trip to Disneyworld in Florida with Heart radio. The design brief was related to Star Wars and I asked my kids for some inspiration. When my son suggested we turn our car into the Millenium Falcon I knew it was just the sort of whacky, over the top idea that Heart love! It took a whole afternoon and a lot of tin foil rolls to cover the car, and I did speed up at the end as there was a thunderstorm rolling in, but the whole family pitched in and got involved at the end. We even dressed up our dog as Chewbacca! It was worth the hours of planning because within a few days I had a call from the Heart producer to shortlist our entry!

What’s your most embarrassing comping story?

Oh gosh, there’s been a few! I always cringe at taking supermarket selfies, or shelfies, especially when there’s lots of people around the aisle, or if I’m just stood outside Tesco randomly taking a cheesy selfie with a bag of crisps! One other embarrassing story comes to mind – I was taking part in an on-air quiz live on Magic radio. Each correct answer was worth £90. The presenter asked me which eye colour do you get if you mix brown and green. I completely misheard the question and blurted out PURPLE! I still laugh about that now when I think of what weird witchiness I’d just described! And the worst part is that I actually have hazel eyes, which would have been the correct answer!!

What would be your dream competition prize?

I am desperate to visit Costa Rica! I love wildlife and it looks like the most beautiful place to see. So a holiday to Costa Rica, or a big cash prize or travel voucher to make it happen would be the dream!

Which other compers do you look to for inspiration?

There’s so many successful and creative compers out there! I love Nic’s (Nikewikewa) sense of humour and her fantastic video skills – I always look forward to seeing her creative entries. And Mel Crumpton is such a talented cook and baker – her food photos are out of this world! I love seeing where comping has taken Charlotte Reeve as she loves travel and adventure. And of course I always look to Sophie for inspiration as she is sooooo creative and talented, and takes the most beautiful photos.

Have you ever won a prize that changed your life in some way?

In 2023 I won a huge prize on Heart radio. The format was an on-air quiz with the winner staying on play to the next day. On the Thursday the caller unfortunately got a question wrong and I was selected to play. I answered my question right meaning I stayed on to the Friday finale. I spent a sleepless night panicking about what questions I would be asked, before I went on air and won a MILLION Virgin Air Miles and £2,500 cash. I would say it’s definitely changed my life, at least for the next few years because we now have unlimited access to flights! In summer we all flew to New York thanks to our air miles, and I still have 900,000 left! I’m thinking of doing a Vegas trip next, to stop and say hi to the place we got married and then go on a road trip to Utah (another one of my bucket list destinations!). Unfortunately Virgin don’t fly to Costa Rica, but we are enjoying seeing lots of other places thanks to these air miles!

Which entry have you put the most effort into – and not won a prize?

Oh gosh, I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve wasted making pancakes to try and win £1000 with Salter! Or bowls of Ready Brek to win their creative competitions! I do not have a good track record with judged creative food entries, but they take me hours to make and are often quite expensive once I’ve bought all of the ingredients!

You’ve successfully managed to turn your family into compers too! Tell us about some of the prizes your husband and kids have won…

My husband’s getting pretty good at winning on the radio! A few years ago he won £2000 on air with Radio X and in April he won an iphone 16 and year’s SIM plan on Virgin Radio by guessing the 80s music video. My daughter is a teenager now but when she was younger she got involved in all of the colouring competitions – it was a godsend during lockdown! One year she even won us a Christmas tree! She won a fantastic prize of an overnight stay in York with tickets to see The Tiger who came to Tea from a colouring-in entry. I also don’t want to forget my son who’s idea it was for the Millenium Fal-Car! In general though, both of my kids prefer me to be winning the prizes of their choosing!!

What radio comping tips can you share with us?

Have a positive attitude and believe you will be chosen! It seems to have worked for me as I’ve won over £25,000 in prizes from the radio! For a call-in competition I don’t hang up until I’ve heard the caller on air – you never know what’s going on behind the scenes. They could have connection issues and have to abandon the first caller. Once I rang Magic for what seemed like ages and they eventually picked up and said they’d already chosen today’s caller but were pre-recording tomorrow’s competition, and I went on to win the latest iphone and £1000 cash! I think it also helps to be bright and bubbly when the producer rings!

Lots of radio competitions give you a really short space of time to text in with a particular story or anecdote and I keep a list of weird and funny things that have happened to me that I can draw on at short notice… like the time when we turned up at the airport 24 hours late for our flight! Or when I put a pretty shell in my pocket and it turned out to be a hermit crab! – ouch! Or when the story of my son being chased through Tesco with a bottle of Lucozade (he wasn’t stealing, honest!) won me £1000 worth of Tesco vouchers. If something bad or embarrassing happens I always say it’ll make a great winning radio story one day!!

How do you keep motivated to comp during a dry spell?

Oooh that’s a hard one! I force myself to double down my efforts and start looking at new platforms to find competitions (I usually ignore X and Tiktok so in a dry spell I will dust off those apps and start searching!). I also practice gratitude and try to reframe my thoughts to focus on all of the lovely prizes I’ve won over the years, or think of it as an opportunity to take up a new hobby or spend more time with friends. I really believe in the power of positive thinking in all aspects of life and so I really try not to get disheartened. I had a really dry spell in May this year, and then June and July won over £18,000 of prizes, so it goes to show that things can turn around in a heartbeat!

Where can SuperLucky readers follow you on social media?

I’m @naynaycearns on X, Instagram and Tiktok

Thank you so much Naomi – I loved this and look forward to joining you and Sophie on the podcast soon!

If you enjoyed this interview please do check out the other Meet The Compers Q&As here. If you’d like to know more about the Lucky Legends membership, head to superlucky.me/luckylegends