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Regrets? He’s Got A few
by Paul Teetor
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Rick Becker, president of Vision Works, the marketing company running the Manhattan Beach Home Giveaway Contest, organizes some of the entries Friday. Photo by Paul Teetor |
If Ben Waldrep had a chance to do it all over again, he wouldn’t.
"I never should have done this. I never should have put my house at risk," Waldrep said Friday afternoon, three days after the deadline for entries in the Great Manhattan Beach home giveaway contest. "I wanted to be able to do a lot for cancer research, but we didn’t come close to meeting the expectations."
At $195 per entry, Waldrep said he expected at least $3-4 million to come pouring in. Under the terms of the contract rules, Waldrep is obligated to give 10 percent to the South Bay Wellness Center and 10 percent to Vision Works, the marketing company that organized and ran the contest.
But with only 3,000 entries, once that 20 percent is deducted, as well as $30,000 in advertising expenses, Waldrep figures to end up with considerably less than the $800,000 the house is appraised at.
That has left Waldrep and his daughter — who had been in line to inherit the house - determined to make an offer to buy it back from whoever wins it.
"I don’t want to mention a figure right now, but we’ll negotiate and make a fair offer," Waldrep said.
The 73-year-old homeowner, whose wife Iris died from cancer several years ago, said he has spent sleepless nights trying to figure out how the contest failed to live up to his expectations.
"I think people might be suspicious that it’s some kind of trick or scam, so they were afraid to enter. Or maybe people felt that they could never write an essay that could compete with professional writers, so why should they waste $195?" he said.
But above all, Waldrep lamented the inability of Vision Works to generate any national publicity. In particular, he said, both People Magazine and Oprah declined to feature Waldrep and the contest.
"If we had had national publicity, it could have hit $3-4 million easily. Rick Becker was sure we would hit that level," he said.
Becker, the president of Vision Works, said he simply wasn’t able to generate enough national publicity to meet the expected level of entries.
"If we could have had more national exposure, and if so many people didn’t wait until the last minute, this wouldn’t have happened," Becker said. "A story like this would have been perfect for People Magazine, but they chose not do it. Frankly, we’ve gotten more publicity after the contest deadline than before the contest ended."
Becker, who was busy Friday collating the entries and preparing them for the judges, said he doesn’t expect to announce a winner until mid-June.
The entries will be judged by four local people for grammar, content and creativity. The judges do not know each other and will not compare notes, Becker said. In addition, each entry seen by the judges will not have a name or any identifying material on it, to ensure the judges do not know who has written it.
Each judge will be able to award an essay up to 25 points, which means each essay has a maximum possible score of 100 points.
"At the end, we expect to have some ties. Those entries will go back to the judges to break the tie," he said.
In addition to posting the winning entry online, Becker said, Vision Works will also post a score for each entry.
Waldrep and Becker are also discussing the possibility of putting all the essays and poems in a book and presenting it to the Manhattan Beach Chamber of Commerce. ER