The Devil's In The Details
So... I entered this contest, as some of you may know, that seems to be more like a viral campaign or social experiment than actual "fair" contest, but I reviewed the rules today and found some interesting points:
m) The selection will take place in two stages.
a. In the first round the entries will be assessed by the Internet public, who may vote for the best profiles uploaded by the Entrants. The first one hundred top votes by the Internet public (the "Finalists") will not only receive the prize indicated in point 4, but will be short-listed for the second stage of selection. For this purpose a special software program with a counter will keep an exact record of all the votes received by the closing day of voting.
b. In the second stage of selection a jury, consisting of leading professionals from the world of advertising, photography and communications, will select the twenty winning Finalists (the "Winners"). In judging the photographs and videos submitted by the Entrants, the criteria used by the judges will take into account, by way of example but not limited thereto, the style's personality, skill in expression of new tendencies, presence and consistency with the brand image. The decisions of the jury are final.
There is a HUGE focus right now on fake voters / cheaters who are ballooning into the top one hundred with thousands of votes per day, but it isn't important, according to the rules.
Per the rules, the top one hundred will get short listed, sure, but then they're going to look over the rest of the entries as well. I'll venture to guess that they're going to pay specific attention to those featured in the blog posts on the contest site, those that have particularly caught the IMT team's eye, as those are the most likely to catch the Benetton casting panels as well.
Or not.
But a review of the rules has left me feeling somewhat less pressured to collect votes and just keep doing with I do - be myself. And we'll see where the chips may land when they fall.
Or however that saying goes.