The Despair Inc. Blog

Our third Caption Contest is at end. 2,000,000 votes were cast against thousands of caption submissions. And after 6 were declared semi-finalists, the voter quickly elevated one design above all others. The design that mocks my very own profession. Dangit!

This time around, the 1st Prize winner of the contest is Mr. Collin Boots of South Dakota- who barely made the submission window in time. For his entirely unfair and mean-spirited denigration of my livelihood, he’ll receive a check for $500 and a wonderful selection of gorgeous products from the Despair catalog!

(Unless it were to, say, get lost in the mail and- in spite of all my hyping- to never be delivered, in which case it would turn into an ongoing problem for our Customer Service department to resolve. The sort of problem I would never even bother to trouble myself with, since MY work of (ahem)”making it look good” was already accomplished… But of course, that WON’T happen- because in spite of what all you cruel and judgmental anti-marketing bigots think, not all of us marketing folk live to over-promise and undeliver and leave support nightmares for the customer service or engineers to resolve!)

Anyway…Collin Boots isn’t the only winner today. As with other Caption Contests, we’re letting all of YOU have a chance to win something, too! From now until Monday night, you can pick up a FREE desktopper of “MARKETING“, simply by adding it to your cart and placing an order for $19.95 worth of other stuff at our website. If you really want to hurt me and take advantage of the fact that I HAVE to give this away- even if it makes me and my people look like amoral reprobates who will lie just for the sheer joy of exploiting the trust of our marks- I mean, the customers!

Now that our 3rd Caption Contest is over, we’d like to again thank all participants- particularly those of you who followed the whole thing from start to finish… Submitting entries, voting on them, then picking a final winner. This process only works because a great many of you are willing to dedicate yourselves to it. Having long been a proponent of some more participatory forms of customer engagement, it makes me particularly happy to see so many people giving this a go! So thanks to all who played along- it’s appreciated!

Remember, you’ve got a week to help yourself to a free “MARKETING” desktopper. Don’t wait until the last minute or you’ll miss out!