Nissan: Facebook Comp Result Looks Very Dodgy but Result Stands

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Nissan has admitted the winner of a $20,000 car who is good friends with its social media coordinator that helped run the Facebook competition appears “dodgy”, but said it was standing by the result.
The Japanese car giant has finally broken its silence two days after being heavily criticised for awarding the Micra to Zac Martin, a digital strategist at George Patterson Y&R Melbourne who describes Simon Oboler, a customer experience channel coordinator at Nissan as his “BFF”.

Further doubt about the legitimacy of the competition came after a weekly winner of the ‘Micraspotting’ competition, Nina Igel, who received a $1,250 Nicola Finetti voucher also turned about to be a friend of Oboler.

PR storm engulfing the car company on Tuesday, after fans took to the Facebook site to voice their anger at the result with claims it was a “scam”.

In an email from a PR company, Nissan said: “Nissan Australia will not be making official comment or giving interviews, but will continue to engage in consumer dialogue in an open and transparent way via social media channels.”

On the company’s Micra Facebook page,a message has been posted detailing its position but maintaining there was no foul play involved with either of the winners.

It said: “Hi Everyone – we have been silent for the last 24 hours watching ourselves get bagged. As we knew we would be. We respect your right to express your opinions and contrary to the suggestions of some, we will not be shutting down this page or censoring in any way (unless anti-social).

“Here are some facts:
– There were numerous people working on the competition, including agency folks. The winner was independently verified by our agency.
– Some of the clues were changed last minute due to external third party availabilities.
– The average time taken to find the clues by the winner was over 2 hours. If the winner had inside info, it would have been much faster.
– The staff member in question brought to our attention that one of the leaders was in fact his friend a number of days before final results were known.

“That said, we know the result looks dodgy. We acknowledged this when we announced the winner. If it waddles and quacks, it must be a duck, right? Well, tell that to the Goose 🙂

“We understand your displeasure. We are listening. Looking forward, we have some ideas on how to make our comps better. It will require your help. Watch this space. We will be back shortly…”

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