Saturday, January 07, 2006

Is This Right?

Everyone's just going crazy with The Star's Power of 9 competition. Although I'm participating in the competition too, I think some people are just taking it the wrong way.

IT consultant aims to win the biggie

KUALA LUMPUR: Call it the kiasu attitude. Not to be outdone by others who submit multiple contest forms, IT consultant Hiew Keng Soon snapped up 200 copies of The Star yesterday to increase his winning chances in the final week of the Power of 9 contest.

Hiew, 28, who hopes to win the prize for the highest number of entries, has submitted 500 forms and is still going for more.

He bought the 200 copies at The Star Road Show at the MPH bookstore in Mid Valley Megamall here.

"I've made several attempts on the weekly contests but still have no luck. I guess Malaysians are the same, a bit kiasu when it comes to things like this. To me, buying numerous copies is a sort of investment and still a lot better than gambling," said Hiew. [...]


Is this right? I understand that people are trying to increase their chances in winning the grand prize of RM199,999, the nine special prizes of RM3,999 and vying to be one of the nine contestants with the highest number of entries, but have they thought of the implications of their actions? This is not being helped by The Star promoting people to buy more newspapers just to get the entry forms by holding roadshows, lucky draws and offering prizes for the nine contestants with the highest number of entries.

Yes, The Star wants to increase revenue, readership, awareness and all that but how about the impact on the environment? Has anyone thought about that? To purchase hundreds of newspapers just for a single entry form which takes up just a small section in the last page of each newspaper while the rest of the newspaper is of no use and discarded just like that, what damage is being done on the environment? Even if those newspapers were to be recycled, have they thought of the cost and the damage on the environment? Have they thought of the deinking process that is nothing short of damaging to the environment? Have they thought of the energy costs involved especially when fossil fuels are on the decline?

I do hope they realise the repercussions of their actions. We might have increased our chances in winning the competition by purchasing such insane number of copies but in the end, all of us are losers when we neglect this world of ours time and again.




No comments:

Post a Comment