Winning 65” Sony Bravia TV

I was quite surprised when I received a call from Shriro Malaysia (distributor of MERCI and Werther’s Original in Malaysia) almost 2 weeks ago regarding the “Indulgent Treats, Magical Moment” contest. The reason to that was because the first thing I was told on the phone was “This is not a scam” followed by “You’ve been shortlisted as the finalist with a chance of winning a Volkswagen Polo Trophy”.

To be honest, I tried predicting what kind of challenge that will be given to me. One thing I did was to memorize the colour and taste of all MERCI chocolates. However, on the day of the challenge, I simply realized that I was thinking too much…

The challenge given to me doesn’t really require brain or brawn. There is only one thing that is essential to win – LUCK! I was given a total of 100 envelops where I can only select 1. Prior to the draw, the organizers informed me that out of the 100 envelops, 99 of them will be a picture of a 65” TV, only 1 envelop contains the picture of a Volkswagen Polo Trophy. This means my chances of winning is exactly 1%.

100 envelops

100 envelops after random shuffle

The organizers even told me to take all the time I need to draw 1 envelop, but I just drew 1 envelop in an instant. That’s because my contest philosophy is “If it’s yours, it will be yours” (or maybe I was too worried about my car parking illegally outside…). When I opened the envelop, it was a 65” TV. I felt a bit disappointed inside, but thinking about how I can finally sleep better again after a few sleepless nights helped me move on.

The organizers later showed me that there really was a Volkswagen Polo Trophy among the 100 envelops. The mechanism of this contest requires you to be lucky twice (shortlisted and make the 1% probability draw) to be able to win the big prize. It’s almost the same as the Eveready and Reckitt Benckiser contests organized last year which offered a condominium and a Honda Civic respectively (which nobody won). If you look at the bright side, more organizers will be able to offer bigger prizes in the future with this mechanism. All you need to do is beat the probability with sheer luck.

In case some of you might want to know, my investment for this contest is around RM100. I’m glad the organizers honor the terms of the contest, sticking to selection of winners by lucky draw instead of highest purchase (because I know there are people out there crazier than me).  I’m thankful to Shriro Malaysia for organizing this wonderful contest and will look forward to their new contests in 2017!