Allowing a video to re-edit AFTER the contest, just to meet contest rules? Is that what IMRE Communications, the company hired to handle the contest, thinks is appropriate? Apparently this is their first time running anything like this YouTube contest. Can you tell? During the time the $25,000 "meltdown" contest was being run there was a PRWeek article. Manish Shrivastava, who is president of Home Depot Incentives and one of the people conducting this contest, had some things to say:
"[Home Depot] usually targets different mediums for campaigns, but felt it was time to throw its hat into the new-media ring in a significant way." He said the holiday season and this idea presented the perfect opportunity ... "It's a good way for us to learn and see what works for us in this space and optimize it from there".
If what has been witnessed is any indication, they would seem they have a lot of work to do in ensuring a legally-conducted contest. If you have any questions for them, or want to let them know what you think of the job they did, contact Will Zweigart at IMRE Communications (willz@imrecommunications.com, 410-821-8220).
I have received several supportive comments in the comments section here, but also several "naysayer" posts. But in every "naysayer" case they chose to address something, ANYTHING besides the substance of the alleged contest law violation. So, rather than endure more comments that have no real value other than to fein "concern", I offer a simple guideline for posting here. If you think that I am wrong about ANY information posted here, then just write a new comment saying something like:
"Hey, this is 'journalist' Patti Bond, and those articles that say that I'm going to work for Home Depot eight days after writing a glowing article about the Home Depot $25,000 contest aren't true, because ..."
- or even -
"This is Home Depot headquarters, and the reason we feel we were responsible for helping the Longs re-edit their video to comply with our contest is based on the Georgia legal statute XX-1234 that says, contrary to our contest rules, the entrants themselves are in NO WAY responsible for their own content. If we really like a video, we are legally obligated to help them win."
That last one I would LOVE to see come to reality. I would sleep better at night...
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