Contest Collusion

I drink a lot of Diet Coke and Coke Zero.  I finally signed up for that My Coke Rewards program to see how quickly I could accumulate points to buy something worthwhile.  Remember when Sprite used to offer those under-the-cap instant wins where you won a soda on the spot?  My Coke Rewards doesn't even come close to that.

First of all the prizes are weak.  A cursory look at the prizes page shows t-shirt after t-shirt, hats, photo albums, and sweepstakes.  There are a few prizes like a Restaurant.com gift card that require over 500 points.

Second, the points take a while to accumulate.  One bottle of soda equals three points, a twelve pack equals ten points, and an eighteen pack equals twenty points.

Given how difficult it would be for me to accumulate points on my own I thought I could ask my Facebook friends if they would want to pool points together and split prizes.  Many people drink more soda than I do but never enter a code.

I did a basic calculation in Excel to determine whether or not it would be worth it.  I figured if I got six other friends to send me their codes we could accumulate the 1000 points needed to earn a $100 Restaurant.com gift card.  Splitting a $100 gift card seven ways only amounts to $15 per person.  Still I thought it was worth a test.

Column1	Points For Item	Points Per Soda	Weekly Rate
Bottle	3	3	21
Twelve	10	0.83	11.62

A bottle is worth 3 points and a can purchased as part of a 12, 18, or 24 pack is worth .83 points.  I figured if a person consumed one bottle per day or two cans per day I could predict how long it would take for six friends and me to get the 1000 points necessary to get the gift card.

Column1	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Week 6	Week 7	Week 8
All Buy Packages of Soda	81.34	162.68	244.02	325.36	406.7	488.04	569.38	650.72
All Buy Individual Bottles	147	294	441	588	735	882	1029	1176
Four Buy Packages and Three Buy Bottles	109.48	218.96	328.44	437.92	547.4	656.88	766.36	875.84

I calculated the figures based on three scenarios: We all buy packages of soda, we all buy individual bottles, or we get a mix.  I assume each person consumes one bottle per day if they bought bottles, and I assume two cans per day if purchased as part of a package.

I concluded that it would take seven weeks for all of us to consume one bottle per day and earn enough for a gift card.  When taking into consideration the time spent entering codes and splitting up the prizes I concluded too much effort was necessary to make it worth while.