Results of the Audi #ProgressIs Twitter contest

CubaJoe One thing I know for a fact and I saw it with my own 2 eyes is that at 6:30 pm EST on Monday the 14th, just 18 hours after the contest was kicked off, one certain person had only tweeted about the contest 7 times, of which 2 were tweets referencing the twitpic... yet had over 23,000 views of her twitpic at that time Really???!!!??. How can someone drive that much traffic to a site with only 7 tweets? This is supposed to be a socia media driven contest? Someithng else is clearly happening and its not fair to everyone else.

Frankie And you are suggesting or inferring what exactly? Just say it. And make sure you know what you are saying and who you are fingering, bc even on the internet, words mean legal things. At some point, I was surprised that all 3 top finishers were logging crazy numbers, but what do I know. Seems like you are stating for fact that the winner cheated (and what would you describe by cheating?). Well, we know the winner and we hold her in as high regard as you do your own friend. We don't like hearing it any more than you would. Again, it's time for John to speak his mind and settle it once and for all. If he believes the contest was rigged (which certainly is his right), he should man up and opt out of the contest, and publically challenge Audi as to the veracity of the entire contest. I think it would make for great media. If he is satisfied with the result, then he should put a stop to the accusations and veiled inferences. It makes him look like a poor loser. Question to all of you... if John had won, would he be able to vouch for every person and view of twitpic or RT, or otherwise? I didn't even know that refreshing a page was legal in the contest, until I saw posts on John's twitpic that people were "refreshing like crazy". So, I admit, I joined the Garcia camp and refreshed a half a dozen times. Please, it WAS a FUN contest, until this discussion went from civil to outright accusations and blatant lies.

CubaJoe At first I didn't want to reply to your post in order to avoid a flame but I just can't get over the fact you speak about his "team" as if those who have their own thoughts about the current results are also automatically speaking for John.

I am here, speaking for myself. What I say here are my own views and although I was rooting for John, his views are not automatically the same as mine nor are mine the same as his. I think it would be unfair to take our words and project them negatively onto John as it looks like you're currently doing.

My personal (!!) thoughts are that I feel the outcome is odd because of what I explained in an earlier reply to you, and although I have a feeling I am not alone in this, I doubt you can actually speak of a team that is speaking in favor of John. We have our own voices and use our own words.

As for "trashing" the winner, I think that's not exactly true either. They don't have to change who has won, I'm happy for her and the charity she gave the money to. What I would like to see, however, is some transparency, simply to take away my own doubts. That has nothing to do with the winner(s) and is, in my opinion, not "trashing" them. If it turned out that they found that we did things wrong or that their own 'live' scoreboard was not functioning right, I would like to hear about that too. It works both ways.

What you say about hawaii 's words, what he said about changing the winner. I think you misunderstood what he said there. I believe the "good lesson" he spoke about is not in order to change the decision or to take the money back (like he also said in the same post: if it is up to him, they shouldn't have to do that), but instead that the lesson could be learned if the numbers do not reinforce Audi's final decision. Or that is at least how I would explain his words.

Lastly, about the charity goals, personally I thought they stated something like "and the winner gets 25,000 USD for a donation of their choice"? Either way, it doesn't really matter and I doubt it is something that should be discussed.

Anyways, I'm leaving it at this, I don't feel much for turning this into a flamewar. Nothing is to be gained with that anyways.

CubaJoe Whoa, whoa, whoa. In no way did I say what you're saying I said. As svache notes, I said the exact opposite. "I for one don't think anyone expects the "winner" to change, or for Audi to take back money from the Nature Conservancy." But my point was, even if the official numbers didn't add up, we all could learn from it as well.

I am NOT saying anyone shouldn't have won, or anyone cheated. I'm fully willing to accept the possibility that the winner achieved the largest number of points across the straightforward measures set up in the official rules.

But if they're that straightforward, there should be no problem putting them out there. Again, it answers the larger questions. "Which are the most effective channels for engagement? What is the most realistic measure of impact or success?" All people who make a living in marketing or social media would benefit.

I did think this was a fairly thoughtful and level headed conversation, and even thanked you for stepping into the fray. But I get the sense here, and on Twitter, that you're taking it far more personally, for understandable reasons, and I don't want things to deteriorate any further. I'm pretty sure my first post here was all I meant to say, and I can only make things worse by continuing. Mahalo!

ParkRat You really want us to beleive that if you get simple numbers, you will then be satisfied, and quietly accept the results? You have already unequivically stated that the declared winner could not have won. You're publishing so-called "proof" of the false numbers and the inherent "reach of influence" of various supporters of the winner given who follows them on Twitter. (interesting research btw, based on nothing scientific but your own opinions and thoughts). And you continue to slam the winner, her supporters and Audi. Enough already.

CubaJoe Thanks, Joe, first of all, for wading into what must seem like the lion's den, and engaging with John's obviously very enthusiastic fans in a thoughtful way.

I don't subscribe to some of the more elaborate conspiracy theories, especially the ones that suggest John was not the most attractive, sexy, creative, fun, compelling contestant of the bunch (thereby making him the natural choice if one were to pick a winner in advance). And you're right that what Audi tried to do is light years ahead of what other large brands would dare to do in this space. I'm glad they gave it a shot.

But releasing the numbers does many things. It would shut up critics, but that's not the main benefit. We all -- big brands, social media users, marketers, customers -- could make it part of a fantastic case study on what worked, and what didn't. What criteria were good metrics of success and what weren't. Whether as someone who would create a contest, or as someone who would enter one, how great would it be to have a national campaign from which to draw best practices? What data nut wouldn't jump at the chance to analyze the numbers to see what it says about everyone involved?

Even if the numbers don't reinforce Audi's final decision, I for one don't think anyone expects the "winner" to change, or for Audi to take back money from the Nature Conservancy. But that could be a good lesson, too.

In the end, I fear Audi is pretty much done with this, and we're all just talking to ourselves. If that's the case, well, John is to be commended for staying positive and trying to put his second place prize to good use... and I'm grateful at least some people are still willing to talk about this. Mahalo!

hawaii CubaJoe I would LOVE to be shut up. Honestly, playing this kind of "the crazy" doesn't sit well with me at all.

CubaJoe Then how do you explain that the leaderboard on the Audi website clearly showed John as #1? Their leaderboard automatically calculated the results of each contestant the whole time (by taking the #ProgressIs and personal hashtags) while the contest was ongoing. Then after a week, they announce someone else to be the winner while John was the winner according to that leaderboard.

I'm not trying to be negative here, but it is just a very odd situation which I, for one, would like to see clarified.

True, I agree with you that the Nature Conservancy is the real winner, that is indeed the most important, and I am happy for them as I would be for any charity. It is, however, not the issue at hand. What bothers me, and I think it's safe to say many others, is that since John was number 1 when the contest closed, they apparently changed their own result a week later, and I do feel that should be explained at the very least. They don't have to change the end result, they don't have to announce John to be the sudden winner, but a bit of transparency would've been nice.

I'm thrilled for The Nature Conservancy. And Audi certainly got a lot of mileage out of this campaign. But if it was a straight points-based contest, there should be no reason to not release the numbers used to make the final determination. It's that simple. If there was other criteria involved, that should've been disclosed.

Why are people asking for this now, and not during the contest? Because every objective measure we can find, including the day-to-day standings for the last few days, show the person who was eventually named the winner had, at best, a decent showing, but certainly not the strongest. Can a dark horse come from behind to win any contest? Sure. That's what Audi's numbers absolutely have to show.

the Twitpic views are the only way the winner could have won, because by every other measure, the metrics were weak. Yet, it was clear early on that Twitpic views were the worst, most easily gamed metric of this contest. I would've thrown them out, but I'm not Audi.

And yes, there was more than one photo for some contestants. But even adding all those together don't add up to a first place position. Again, according to numbers I looked up at midnight on Friday. Are my numbers wrong? Quite possibly. Audi can put it to rest.

Audi was fine saying who was in first place with a daily update right until the last day, then promised news Tuesday, then finally notified participants Wednesday for a Friday public announcement. Whatever caused the delay -- hopefully, serious and considered auditing of the point system -- it hurt credibility.

Again, I'm glad for the donation to charity, and I'm sure everyone involved wanted only to have a good time while tooting Audi's horn.

But what shouldn't happen is for Audi to reap all the benefits of rallying entire communities to its cause, only to disappear from the conversation with a press release and some gifts. Social media is not just a marketing channel. Engagement and transparency are also key parts of having a presence on these platforms.

After all their happy tweets of encouragement, the silence is deafening. And demonstrating that they may not understand what they were doing in the first place. The end result is the feeling that we were all simply used and exploited by another flashy brand, rather than taking part in something that could've moved both the business marketing and social media communities forward.

It's all good, Cat! Hope you're ready to tweet-up! :)

Tommytrc audi Aloha, Tommy! Thanks brother u00e2u0080u0094 nice and warm here in the islands. You ever been?

I think we all learned a great deal about not only ourselves, but about social media in general during this contest.

It was a great experience and I'm proud to have been part of it. Keep in touch!

Tommytrc nice to meet you online, Tommy, & hope to see you in Hawaii!

Melissa808 Tommytrc I also told Tommy that we should get together if/when he ever gets back here. And he said he was game! It should make for a fun lunch I'm sure.

And I totally agree with Tommy's comment about making some friends thanks to this. That was exactly the silver lining that I was thinking was there for me. Gotta find the good in it because otherwise it would just be too depressing to feel so abused and ignored.

MikeSumida Thanks dude!

MikeSumida Agreed. I've been champing at the bit to make a lot more noise about the irregularities in this contest, but I'm trying very, very hard to follow John's lead. He's a nice guy, and Hawaii should celebrate that. Both sentimentally and literally, in our eyes, he's come out on top. I'm glad he still plans to do some real good with his second place prize.

AlohaBruce Thanks for the comment, Bruce! The contest was points based, so whoever got the most points based on the five methods of scoring (RTs with official hashtags, official twitpic views, youtube video views, blog posts and comments) was named the winner.

I've reached out to Audi to see if we could get the tallied points posted so we can all learn from an awesome social media contest!

Either way, we'll rock it out and try to raise more money for charity u00e2u0080u0094 and you and Yaling are invited. Stay tuned!

Ynaku Mahalo! Thanks for your support. :) I'm happy with 2nd and we'll make the most of it! Stay tuned for details on the event!

hawaii Mahalo, Ryan! I'm confident that audi will share their thoughts and hopefully publish leaderboard points so we can do a more detailed analysis and breakdown of this awesome effort.Thanks again for your support!