One-Million-Like Picture contest results
“One-Million-Like-Picture” – a smoking hot competition among cake communities, attacting hundreds of cake decorators from across the country during the past few weeks has finally come to an end at 12 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 24. After three days of tireless working, the organizers now have the final results from the online votes and Rich’s judges. Which picture wins the grand prize? Which cakes receive the judges’ prizes?
“One-Million-Like-Picture” is an online cake decoration competition with the biggest scale in Rich’s history, enabling cake decorators from different levels of expertise to participate. The rules were simple: each participant is to make a cake from Rich’s products, then take a photo of the cake with the products next to it and submit the photo to the contest. The competition has 4 prizes: One grand prize voted by the online community is a ticket to the Companion 2017 tour held by Rich’s Vietnam, and 3 first prizes are decided by Rich’s judges.
The grand prize’s total worth is 15 million vnd and is an invaluable present that many cake decorators yearn for. Because the Companion tour is a chance for them to open up eyes, see beautiful cakes and learn from Rich’s top chefs while exchanging business and trends knowledge with the other participants, who are owners of big bakeries and chains across the country. Companion also consists of a lot of fun activities and meaningful games that are relaxing, surprising and also very competitive.
To learn more about the Companion tour by Rich’s Vietnam, have a look at this video on Companion 2016.
A cake festival with lots of emotions
From the first day, “One-Million-Like-Picture” have won lots of hearts from cake lovers. The competition is a cake festival where the participants can learn, share and showcase the artworks that they crafted themselves.
Not only fine technical experts but also unskilled audience members were drawn to the competition when pictures of beautiful cakes were shared all over social media. Through words of mouth, many contestants received cake orders from Facebook with the message “I saw your beautiful cake in the contest and I want to order that.” Surprised and touched, many contestants expressed their gratitude to Rich’s for opening up business opportunities for them and raising awareness of their bakeries’ brands. Some other contestants became friends despite the fact they lived a thousand miles away from each other just because they appreciated each other’s technical skills demonstrated through the cakes.
However, this competition is more than just a celebration of happy feelings, compliments, Facebook likes and shares. “One-Million-Like Picture” brought just as much stress and competitiveness to the contestants.
The social media war
While new submissions were uploaded every day, the contestants were busy calling for their friends to vote for their entries. Some photos were uploaded later but gained the support from the online community more quickly compared to some earlier submissions. The top 10 photos were constantly changing, not only weekly but daily and hourly. The interest and support for the competition and Rich’s products from Internet users and customers really surprised us and made us treasure even more the love and sincerity of the contestants.
However, this competition is not an easy-to-manage platform, and social media is more than just fun and vibrant. In fact, it brings a lot of headaches with all the unspoken complicated rules.
Throughout the competition, there were times when the total likes on certain submissions increased inexplicably, causing many contestants to be concerned. To ensure the fairness of the competition, Rich’s announced that all votes shall be reexamined and unqualified likes will be eliminated. After lots of research, we’ve decided to base our data analysis on Facebook insights and have the definition of an unqualified like as follows: When a like doesn’t exist along with a view, then that like is unqualified. Because we believe a fair voter would have seen the photo before clicking the like button. The voters may not be the contestant’s friends and may not live in the same area as the contestant. They may be strangers who found the cake beautiful and clicked “like” to express their admiration for the cake decorator.
The photo that left a big impression on the judges
While the grand prize is recorded through online votes, the 3 first prizes are determined by Rich’s judges based on aesthetics, the cake’s layout, and the decorators’ skills as well as the judges’ person preferences. The judge panel included technical experts with over 10 years of experience and public judges with no cake expertise—to ensure fairness among the contestants.
Before announcing the final results, we would like to introduce to you a photo that left a big impression on the judges and caused some controversies among them:
The submission named “Penny – the evil clown” by Tran Mai from Da Nang was thought to be the most intricate cake among all the entries.
The judge panel said: “The cake is very soulful and portrays well the facial expression of the character that the contestant intended. The layout of the cake is very proportional and the colors seem harmonized. This cake is best for the Halloween’s season. The contestant showed us that they have a good aesthetic sense and technical skills.”
Although all the judges agreed that Tran Mai’s technical skills are the best among the contestants, the clown’s face looked so real that some female judges were terrified by it, thus leading to the gap of grades between the professional judges and the public judges.
The final results
For some contestants let the organizers know that their entries were unwantedly hacked, and some voters may not have carefully clicked on the photo to view it before liking it, we decide to not investigate further the hacking claims. However, all likes have been filtered and below are the top 5 submissions by online votes:
Ly Vuong Quy Tp HCM – 2 261 votes
Tran thi Bao Anh Dong Nai – 1 828 votes
Phan Thi Thuy Trang Dong Nai – 1 267 votes
Nguyen Thi Phan Dong Nai – 1 120 votes
Luu Ngoc Bao Thy Tien Giang – 962 votes
Accordingly, the grand prize—a ticket to the Companion 2017 tour—goes to Ly Vuong Quy from Ngo Nghinh bakery in Binh Thanh district, HCMC.
Commenting on this entry, the judges said: “The arrangement of cakes is quite beautiful with lovely and trendy cakes. The way the contestant puts Rich’s products around the cakes is also quite eye-pleasing. Even from far away, we can see that his cakes are very well decorated. If only there were a big cake in the center for the audience to focus on, the photo would be even more appealing. We really appreciate your love for Rich’s and our products.”
Next is the announcement of the top 3 contestants with the highest scores from the judge panel:
Dong Khang Vung Tau 55 60 points
Tuyen Trinh Bac Lieu 52 60 points
Tiem banh Cherry Da Nang – 50 60 points
Commenting on the top 3 submissions, the judges said: “Dong Khang’s submission is a very vibrant picture that is able to show the love of a mother waiting for her children. The colors combination is quite good. The only thing about this cake that stopped us from giving it a 10 is that the moon is a little big compared to the overall, and the pattern on the scarf is a little too much, outshining the mother’s face. Overall, your artwork shows your aesthetic sense and technical level.”
“As for Tuyen Tuyen Bakery, we see that the layout of the cake is very proportional and brings a very pleasant feeling to the viewer. The decorator chose some pastel colors that are perfect for the “nature and ocean” theme. Three cakes although with three different styles are put together and make an artwork. The arrangement of Rich’s products is also rational and just right, pleasing the viewer.”
“Last but not least is Cherry Bakery’s submission. This is a cake that has a very nice layout and a logical colors combination. The shaping of the cups and teapot is quite sharp. However, the handle and spout of the teapot are not as well-sculpted”
Thanks to all the contestants for your participation. Although all competitions have winners and losers, to us, you all are winners and can be proud of your artworks because you were not afraid to test your limits in a competitive national competition such as “One-Million-Like-Picture.” Contestants who were announced the winners will be contacted by Rich’s soon.
Rich Products Vietnam congratulates the winners on their grand prize and first prizes. See you all in the upcoming competitions!
