So you may have heard we ran a contest two weeks ago at SXSW. It was interesting because it was both my first time attending SXSW and also a first for SmartHippo–so we weren’t really sure what to expect. The contest was well-promoted beforehand, and despite a lot of noise going on during SXSW, we had a core group of dedicated hippo hunters who made it really fun!

I’m very happy to announce that one of those hippo hunters, Greg Robleto, is also our grand prize winner! It wasn’t a huge surprise, in addition to tweeting about the contest, he also blogged about it, which scored him an extra five entries into the grand prize draw. Also, he did manage to pick up one of the prizes at the show, and even ran his own contest with that–very neat idea!

Since we had some gift certificates left over we gave Greg some instant gratification prizes including a gift certificate for the T-shirt Outlet and Sunglass Warehouse, along side the big prize of a $400 CD he can use to save up for whatever he wants. The reason we chose a CD as the grand prize is that times are tough right now and as much as we all love winning great stuff, I think we can all appreciate a little bit tucked away for later use.

We did a brief three-question interview with Greg to find out how he liked the contest and what he plans to do with his savings.

1. How did you hear about the Hide a Hippo contest?
I think I saw a RT (retweet) from @sxsw about the content, and then followed a link to smarthippo.com for more information.

2. Why did you decide to play?
I am a sucker for scavenger hunts so I immediately had the itch to play, but I really made the point to play to support the campaign. I thought it was a very smart means of building brand awareness for SmartHippo. I think a lot of people try too hard and spend way too much, or dismiss the possibility due to the economic climate or other similar factors and don’t bother trying. I liked that this content was lean, easy to participate in, and maintained stickiness (each day I was wondering where that hippo was).

3. What do you plan on using the $400 CD for?
If it’s a CD that requires one-year to mature it may be perfect for making sure I can get to SXSW again next year. More than likely, though, it will go towards my wife and my goal of getting into a new home, so either towards the new house, or fixing up the current place so it’s more likely to sell.

Thanks Greg! Now if you do use the savings towards a new home, I hope you know where to look for your mortgage! ; )

We hope to run more SmartHippo contests in the future. To make sure you hear about them, follow @smarthippo on Twitter, or stay tuned here!

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