Chowking's Shot at a Laptop Congee Photo Contest: Lutong Macao

Chowking recently concluded its Congee Photo Contest with five winners of Acer laptops and 12 consolation prize winners, each with P5,000 worth of gift certificates. Malamang magsasawang kakain ng Hong Kong-style congee itong mga second prize winners.

Anyway, they announced the winners here. Congratulations to some of them, they deserved it. However, I don't agree with the judges' decision on who should have won.

Top Five Winners

Consolation Prize Winners

It seems that the judges, coming from various ad agencies, chose to ignore the contest mechanics and followed their own criteria. The official mechanics stated:

CRITERIA for JUDGING
CREATIVITY(50%) - Based on the Uniqueness and/or Originality, Overall Impact, Composition, Subject rendered, and Artistic Merit.
HUMOR (40%) Wholesomeness, wittiness and/or Entertaining
CLARITY/QUALITY OF PHOTO (10%) Quality and Sharpness of color and texture

Decisions made by the Judges are irrevocable. CHOWKING will select top 5 photos. All the top 5 winners will get ACER ASPIRE LAPTOP CONSOLATION PRIZE: 10 winners of P5,000 worth of Chowking gift certificates. Prizes are Transferable but not convertible to cash.

Looking at the photos above and at the other entries; and then judging based on the criteria indicated, I would say there are others, more deserving to win. It seems that the winning entries are chosen based on their suitability for an ad campaign! Yeah, they are great shots. Any photography addict with the proper equipment can make that. But some of them have less humor, wittiness, or entertainment than the non-winning entries.

If you were to ask me who should win, these are my choices:

Top Five

Consolation Winners

This blunder, along with the other mistakes (Uploading problems) in the contest, Chowking should hire a different marketing staff. They should also get a better IT team. Their website lacks functionality, you can't order online or look at menu and prices.

Chowking should be thankful that Hen Lin, their main competitor, is years away in equaling them in size. Otherwise, these problems will slowly eat them out of the market.