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Hotels.com Rewards Readers of Fine Print

  In a twist, an Internet company is rewarding TV viewers who take the time to read the fine print in one of its commercials.

Last month, Hotels.com decided it has high time that TV viewers stopped fast forwarding their DVRs through their commercials. So it created a sweepstakes that required people to pause the recorded program so they could read the rules of the contest including how to enter.

*MOUSE PRINT:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2NbtHAzNnU

The commercial only ran for a week. During that time, how many people do you think paused the commercial and actually entered the sweepstakes for a free trip?

350.

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12 thoughts on “Hotels.com Rewards Readers of Fine Print”

  1. I look at that and wonder how anyone could read it if they didn’t record it. That’s ridiculous. Ads go by so fast.

  2. There could have been more people who paused to read the legal copy, but were not interested in winning a free trip. I am unlikely to enter a sweepstakes for a free trip because I am not interested in trips.

    Perhaps if the sweepstakes was for a monetary award or some kind of useful merchandise I would have jumped on the challenge. I don’t watch much TV these days so I wouldn’t have caught this.

    I did get a laugh out of the text though.

  3. Only 350 entries is pretty sad. I never saw the commercial. Did they attempt to communicate it over social media or other platforms? If not, then it is a bit of a marketing Fail.

  4. I’m guessing many fast forwarded until they got to the fine print and ignored the rest of the commercial 🙂

  5. Just enter the sweepstakes and be hounded until the next ice age by daily calls about a “free trip” you have won!

  8. I don’t have TV and don’t pay attention to ads on the internet. I also don’t do social media. Keeps me sane.

  10. If I had seen the commercial and was interested in pursuing the contest, my satellite DVR puts a big bar across the bottom of the screen blocking about 20% of the screen/text. Same thing if I were going to try to read the fine print on a auto lease commercial. Or a drug commercial.

  11. So, the contest is only open to users with DVR’s? I know technically it is not, but their voice over does state “Use your DVR to read them [the rules]”

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