I’ve had a few emails from people questioning, “WTF happened to the Hoorenbeck contest?”
This was what they required:
[ hoorenbeek ] OUTFITS CONTEST
We would love to invite you to take part in the first event of this kind:
The [ hoorenbeek ] Outfits Contest.We are looking for the best combinations of our products!
To participate, you will have to create an outfit using our products.
You can use hair, skins, eyes and 2 accesories (glasses, cuffs, watches, jewelry, etc.) from other designers; the rest of the outfit must be created with [ hoorenbeek ] products.You must send a notecard with the list of used products and at least two pictures of the outfit.
Only one submission per avatar is permitted.The winners will be chosen by the following jury, composed by some of the most prominent men involved in SL fashion:
Sawyer Camepese
Co-Owner and Designer of LE.LOOK!http://lelooksl.wordpress.com/
Maddox DuPont
MADesignshttp://madimage.wordpress.com/
Ansor Hoorenbeek
CEO of [ hoorenbeek ]Oscar Page
Oscaresquehttp://oscaresque.wordpress.com/
Pilgrim Nordwind
CEO of [ hoorenbeek ]Ben Vanguard
Owner of slmen.comhttp://www.slmen.com/
We will reward originality and creativity; the ability to create some original looks using our products.
Prizes:
1st Place:
L$100,000
PLUS 50% of the sales of the outfit at our store.2nd Place:
L$25,000
40% of the sales of the outift3rd Place:
L$15,000
30% of the sales of the outift4th Place:
L$10,000
30% of the sales of the outift5th Place:
L$5,000
20% of the sales of the outiftIf you are interested in participating, please fill out the “[ hoorenbeek ] Outfits Contest Application” notecard and send it to Ansor Hoorenbeek.
We will receive this notecard until July 1st 2009.
The winners will be announced at the Outfits Party on Saturday July 18th 16PM SLTIf you have any questions about the Contest, please, feel free to send a notecard to Ansor Hoorenbeek.
Thank you for your time and the good luck!The [ hoorenbeek ] Team.
Well I sent Ansor a notecard asking him wtf was up, sine he obviously didn’t bother to contact the contestants himself.
Hey Ansor,
I’ve had a few notecards come my way asking me to look into the Hoorenbeek contest with the $100k prize. Apparently no one has heard anything. What happened?
–Tenshi
A note I received:
“Do you think you could please see what is happening with the hoorenbeek competition? The prize was supposed to be 100k and a share of the profits and the competition finished on the 1 of July with winners to be announced on the 13. But there has been nothing said.”
I sent the notecard on the 10th, and Ansor just got back to me today via IM:
[8:13]Â Ansor Hoorenbeek: (Saved Sun Aug 16 10:46:46 2009) HI, due to the poor quality of the outfits received, we will extend the contest for 2 more months and we will see what happens.
[8:53]Â Tenshi Vielle: It took you a week to get back to me?[8:55]Â Ansor Hoorenbeek: Yes, and consider you lucky… We are very busy and hardly have time for SL
[8:57]Â Tenshi Vielle: LOL Okay. I’ll post your response on SCD, because you have several people wanting to know wtf happened.
There you have it folks. The contest is extended for two months because according to Ansor, your entries suck that much.
Oh, and an addendum – from what I understand, entry contestants had to buy their merchandise – some lost up to $4kL entering.
…
Wow.
*adds Hoorenbeek to the same list Stiletto Moody is on*
Well then it’s obviously the fault of all those who entered as they suck too much.
Grumbles.
NICE.
It’s always a good marketing move to piss off your existing customers in preference to potential customers
That is so annoying cuz I shop there, and SILO shops there.
Sigh.
grrrr.
As much as I LOVE H.Beek they should’ve announced that decision (i’m not sure if they did, did they? I’m not not in the group).
At least as to not keep people waiting on air.
Ansor Hoorenbeek (who claims “Bussiness Managemnt” as skill in his profile, yes, “Bussiness Managemnt”) gave me the most condescending customer service I ever had to experience in SL. So I really “consider you lucky”, Tenshi.
If I wouldn’t be in a good mood I would call Hoorenbeek the most arrogant assholes in SL.
Thanks for looking into this. I’m one of the idiots not good enough, I guess!
Hoorenbeek tried to get involved in a Wall-Street roleplay thing recently in SL. It worked fine until they got involved – then their “investors” lost money when they were told they wouldn’t get a return unless the Hoorenbeek creators got a 400kL salary a month or something of the sort.
They’ve since shut down the roleplay until they fix the loopholes that Hoorenbeek dug out.
Since all entries were made up of items totally from their store.. is that not like saying basically “our already overpriced, single layered merchandise, is poor quality”?
Many of the top bloggers and stylists entered this contest, so he has just insulted a huge group. (I entered too, and I dont consider myself part of this group, although I am insulted by the term “poor quality)
Me thinks, 2 more months is just an extension of a contest that already stanks, and many will come to the conclusion that its purpose was to generate more sales. Can you say “GREED”?
I wonder what his thought process was? “How can I be an arrogant he-cunt to someone who can annihilate my reputation….?” One week later… “GOT IT!”
Maybe we should make a flickr group to see all of these poor quality entries.
Well then! *adds Hoorenbeek to the list of places not to buy from*
It’s okay. Their stuff was shite anyway.
Here guys, I made you a group. Post your reject pics here. http://www.flickr.com/groups/1203445@N21/
Suck thats I own nothing from them anyway.
haha… well… i try that contest… got the same answer as tenshi… and here is my sucking outfit. XD http://www.flickr.com/photos/joordi/
You know, maybe we should post what all was spent on these outfits too. Get a running tally on what they made on this little gambit.
Hooren-who? End of Comment.
LOL@Katey..
neither of the above posted outfits are poor imo so if allll the others were poorer than these then one of these shoulda been the winner end of story. what he shoulda say was, we didn’t make enough lindens off people buying stuff throughout the contest to cover the prize money so WE are too POOR to payout. sad. and what does “we’ll see what happens” mean? O.O does that mean they won’t choose a winner at all? and if you’re too busy for SL why are you having a contest you silly goose? that seems like a very time consuming project. *rollingeyes*
Doesn’t surprise me. I purchased two pairs of shoes for myself and a friend from Ansor and wasn’t all that impressed w/ them. My mistake for buying shoes w/out a demo I spose. He was quite rude when I mentioned the flaws in the shoes and finally stated that I would get a replacement pair. That was over a year ago I think. I still haven’t received a replacement pair. He is the ONLY creator/designer I have contacted in the last 4.5 years that I couldn’t come to some type of resolution with.
Ya know what? I prolly missed the message saying it was extended, because i roll my eyes everytime I got a page long message from their subscribo. Yep made a trip just to leave it.
Nyx: “My mistake for buying shoes w/out a demo I spose”. You “spose” correctly. As far as I know they offer demos for all their shoes and you should have tried them on first. This goes for a lot of products in SL; shoes, hair, skins etc.
I’ve contacted Ansor one time over a CS issue and he got back to me the day after and solved it for me. Very happy with the product. As far as the contest goes… Yeah, that’s not right. Hopefully they will sort it out ASAP and give some lucky person their 100k.
*Antonia* As I said this was some time ago and I did look for a shoe DEMO…..all they had, at that time, was a large demo up front where one could click to test the texture changes and such. I ‘spose’ I should have waited
Wow that response is messed the fuck up. Arent they somewhat popular? I went there and wasnt impressed. what a shitty fucktard way to treat people regarding customers/ppl just wanting money who BOUGHT your product to participate, and spent time making pics. who the fuck are they to call the photos “poor quality” and just shovel them off into a grave. Lame. Super fucking lame. Ive never shopped there but i hear the name around, ill be sure to tell people to stay away. as far as im concerned, they deserve no ones business.
Where can I buy a “Don’t shop at Hoorenbeek” tee?
It is so lame that they made people SPEND MONEY AT THEIR STORE just to enter this competition, then basically CANCEL the competition without a word, hoping that people will just forget about it.
Their stuff is way overpriced and you can find much better quality stuff elsewhere on the grid for much cheaper.
SCD should have a new weekly section called, “When creators get GREEDY.”
“1st Place: L$100,000 PLUS 50% of the sales of the outfit at our store. 2nd Place: L$25,000 40% of the sales of the outfit (…)†… all in all 155,000 L$ + (if they sell the outfits in a “fatpack†over one year considering their popularity and prices) circa 500,000 L$ (probably more) = 655,000 L$ in prize money. I am pretty convinced they made the math and never intended to pay it out.
“Outfits Contest. We are looking for the best combinations of our products! (…) you will have to create an outfit using our products.†“(…) due to the poor quality of the outfits received, we will extend the contest (…)†… if he really intended to pull this through, if he had really put any thought into it, he wouldn’t have used this contradictive excuse, which more or less says his products are crap or not possible to combine.
He probably meant to do a “Photo Contest†to get high quality add photos for his store to put up like ETD (I think) and others did.
All in all it smells like a big scam. One should ask the jury whether they were ever asked to participate and under what conditions.
@Antonia
One year ago they didn’t have demos for their shoes, so it was always like playing roulette. They had L, M, S and XS sizes in their folders and even the XS was too large for me. And if you asked for customer service concerning this they more or less laughed at you how stupid you were to buy the shoes.
I’m dying here lololololol!!!!!
I just read that some “designer” ran a contest that involved the designer’s products and the designer said all the entries sucked?!?!?!?!!!
HAHAHHAHHAHAHAAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAH
Does anyone seriously not understand why I am cramping from laughing so hard?
yep
Use Hoorenbeek outfits and the guy says ‘the poor quality of the outfits……….’
Can anyone post the official rules if there are any? and does it say “entries we deem substandard immediately goes to the shitter” which is what seems to be happening now.
I wonder who the lucky winner will be.
If i entered I would be completely naked, outside, and erect. A hoorenbeek shoe would sorround my genitalia.
I was just at Hoorenbeek and the boots I wanted did NOT have any visible demo offered, anywhere. I took a chance and purchased on the assumption the vendor pic might be an accurate representation of the quality of the boot. Notsomuch. That would be enough to make me hesitate to buy anything from them again, but this contest bullshit? No way do they get more L$ from me.
Aww… Hoorenbeek is too busy making Cafepress shirts to bother with SL.
~V.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dihoorenbeek/3684591195/in/pool-1203445@N21
This so totally sucks. I cannot believe how Hoorenbeek handles this.
What about that extending it for 2 more months? In the group nothing was announced about this!
I am so happy with this blog, thank you!!
just a bit of info.. it’s illegal to have “purchase necessary” for contests. i know SL doesn’t always follow the law…
i’d encourage anyone entering contests where they ask you to wear their things to write them and ask if they have “items” for free for the contest.
i personally think we should attempt to follow as many laws as we know of.
if the contest is “for members who have our clothing” that’s different.
but my advice, and perhaps some people may not like this but, don’t EVER buy a thing you wouldn’t normally buy to enter a contest…
ok well. this stuff is sorta a bummer and i’m sorry for anyone this happened to.
i know as designers we run into RL things which do hinder the best of plans in sl OR have issues with SL, computers, etc, but it’s sorta good to try to keep customers updated as much as possible.
i’d say ‘believe the best’ til you know but i guess they let you know.
cc
nice, now I have a good reason to not drop the L on their cigarette pack.
He’ll probably just create a few alts and then let them win the competition, so he gets the prize money back to himself.
[10:34] *****: hey just wandering whats going on about the competition, is there ever going to be a winner?
[10:43] Ansor Hoorenbeek: Hello, yes the winner will be announced in 2 months
[10:44] *****: definitely 2 months?
[10:47] Ansor Hoorenbeek: Sorry I’m in the middle of a business meeting, extremely busy today, have to go
lol @ that chat B I Y B.
and I reject the fact that the entry of Krise and me would suck. Think we did a pretty good job with their boring stuffs. Took us hours actually to find something that fit and look good. Grrr
thank you for this blog and speaking up!
and dont you think it is strange they let not do the jury their job to say the pictures are good or not?
He sounds like a con artist – always too busy to get back to people etc – ware the Hoorenbeek
“Sorry I’m in the middle of a business meeting, extremely busy today, have to go”
Takes longer to type than “Yes”. Just sayin’
I enjoy the term “business meeting” a lot in sl.
“I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.” John Cleese
@ byib
Wow. Srsly??? I really wish that were a joke
The sad thing is if there’s enough uproar about this he will announce ” winners ” in an effort for this all to be forgotten. And many will forgive him.
Sounds familiar, He’s not a linden lab employee is he?
Hoorenbeek is full of double standards. They’ll release a “weekly freebie” that magically disappears after two days, they forget to mention that certain things are fullbright only, etc.
– Instant message logging enabled –
[5:17] Di Hoorenbeek: Ansor, I understood the contest winners will be announced in 2 months?
[5:17] Ansor Hoorenbeek: Hi, yes, if we have some decents outfits, yes
[5:17] Ansor Hoorenbeek: =)
[5:18] Di Hoorenbeek: think the outfot from me and Krise is pretty decent
[5:18] Di Hoorenbeek: outfit
[5:19] Ansor Hoorenbeek: I dont remember which outfit is yours, but none of the received outfits has a new look
[5:19] Ansor Hoorenbeek: We are looking for more creativity and none of the outfits have it…. I mean, most of them are very similar to the outfits we already have
[5:21] Di Hoorenbeek: maybe the clothes you have so far dont allow more creativity than this. If no-one pulls it off to create what you have in mind, it might be your own stuff?
[5:21] Ansor Hoorenbeek: No, its not, some designers did something very different, but I guess we need ppl with talent to do that
[5:22] Di Hoorenbeek: people actually spend a lot of money to enter this contest
[5:22] Di Hoorenbeek: and then you telling them and me tha we do a crap job is at least to call very rude
[5:24] Ansor Hoorenbeek: I didnt say crap at any time… We (and Im including the jury) are all agree that the outfits, most of them, are not good enough… they are very common.. like ppl buying stuff and put them together… The whole point of the contest is to find some great stylist, like Ben, Takeshi or Oscar
[5:26] Di Hoorenbeek: when everyone entered the contest, they all expected a winner announced at July 18.
[5:26] Di Hoorenbeek: There was never said in the contest rules, that if you didnt find a certain level of outfits there wouldnt be a winner
[5:26] Di Hoorenbeek: you cant just change competition rules half way the game
[5:27] Ansor Hoorenbeek: Yes, and we expected more quality.. This is the most honest thing to do… we easily can give the prize to one of our many alts, but that would be shitty, so we prefer to give ppl a second chance to do it right, I hope ppl realize and appreciate that
[5:28] Di Hoorenbeek: but Ansor
[5:28] Di Hoorenbeek: I checked group notices and your store too
[5:28] Di Hoorenbeek: nothing announced there that this contest is still running
[5:28] Di Hoorenbeek: so how do you expect more entries?
[5:29] Ansor Hoorenbeek: We will put the new sign next week, because we have a schedule to follow and this was not in our plans
[5:32] Di Hoorenbeek: ok thx
[5:32] Ansor Hoorenbeek: YVW
ROFL.
This contest could break SL records for the longest running competition.
“like ppl buying stuff and put them together”
what are they to do then? make their sionchickens wear the stuff and take pictures of that?
“we easily can give the prize to one of our many alts”
and i have a feeling thats exactly what they’ll do
They just didn’t generate the income they expected with this marketing/advertising campaign. Simple as that. A styling contest that REQUIRES YOU to purchase THEIR apparel is nothing more than an ad campaign, questionable at best, illegal at worst and why would anyone expect anything more?
We should all take turns at interviewing Ansor Hoorenbeek. I must admit the guy is entertaining.
Omg Di!! I want to comment so much but this small mobile device is insufficient for all that wants to come out
That guy is a FUCKING RETARD! He is probably one of RaRs alts!! They’re so fucking identical it’s creepy
Takeshi, ben, and oscar should pull out of this before there rep is ruined as well. Ansor said they ALL felt the pics weren’t good enough… Gee. The funny thing is all 3 of those people aren’t awe inspiring and to top it off hooranphuks outfits suck.
havent expected anything else of hoorenbeck but shame @maddox,ben and the other jury that they seem to support that scam. I suggest they better pull out.
Ooh, can we? I’d love to have my own interview with him.
This story needs MORE fuel, I’d like to see interviews with all the judges involved to get their perspectives. Feel free to interview any one of the above, I declare you all journalists!
I wonder if he has any clue how much business he has lost? Now he can just change the rules, dispite them being quite clear?
Basically he has disqualified all entries, and should return the money people spent on preparing them… the items were listed in each entry.
All in all, it is quite obvious he really doesnt care… end of story.
He is extremely arrogant. And the jury looks very bad because of all this. Most of them have a good name inworld, I cannot believe they let this happen.
Anyway, I want to report this to LL. But I dont have a pro account or anything. Not sure I can.
And I would love to see more people reporting this. Otherwise it will all be forgetten and burried within a month. And that’s exactly what Ansor Hoorenbeek is hoping for.
So please, report this! I’m sure it would help.
I just want to clarify that I know my name is listed amongst the jurors, however I was never shown any picture to “vote” or “give an opinion” on. As of yet I have been uninvolved in the jury process.
Sawyer, thank you so much for you honest feedback. I appreciate this a lot.
But now the whole thing gets even more strange, now that we know you never seen a picture yet.
Especially when Ansor states: “[5:24] Ansor Hoorenbeek: I didnt say crap at any time… We (and Im including the jury) are all agree that the outfits, most of them, are not good enough…”.
Maybe it’s a good idea to ask the rest of the jury if they have been asked to judge anything and maybe want to do something against this. I know I wouldnt be so happy if it was my name that was used for this crap.
Thanks again, Sawyer.
Simple solution- stop shopping there
He’s rude and has shit customer service. Give your money to someone who can offer both support and appreciation to you as a customer
Sawyer,
i am really relieved you stated something here because i could not imagine that you would give your name for something like this.
what you said was what i guessed and i was really irritated by what Ansor said about that there was an agreement about the whole thing, and when i read his first reply to di again here it just says, that its going to happen again…
greetings
krise
maybe an improvement to sl would be that businesses must not be named after sl avatar surnames.
Quote:
“To participate, you will have to create an outfit using our products.
You can use hair, skins, eyes and 2 accesories (glasses, cuffs, watches, jewelry, etc.) from other designers; the rest of the outfit must be created with [ hoorenbeek ] products.”
Nowhere does it say that you have to BUY products to enter. It is actually presumed that you have HOORENBEEK products already.
This is HOORENBEEK style competition therefore you have to use their products to enter. HOORENBEEK should have gone to elaborate that their plan was to use competition to find styles/stylists that best represent Hoorenbeek as a brand, which would be then used to promote them (advertising)
Therefore, Hoorenbeek has a right to judge (they do not need jury for this btw) if the outfits they have received DO represent them as a brand. I certainly personally would not give 100K to someone if I did not find images I needed for that money.
Why would you even think about contacting jury and waste their time if what you have received was not what you are looking for and you would not use to advertise your product?
Now what Hoorenbeek should have done is keep the contestants informed about the reasons for delay and future plans. Speaking to Ansor he is quite aware of this but his RL commitments stood in the way.
If Ansor has mentioned showing entries to other judges it was probably me, as I received private plurk from Krise on this and contacted him to find out on reasons for delay. It was not my place to make announcement and in Ansor’s defense he has legitimate reasons why his RL has prevented him from doing this earlier (and possibly still does).
Before some of you start creating drama out of nothing and bashing yet another creator for mistakes that could be easily be made by anyone, consider this:
- we all try to do the best that we can with time that we have in the game
- personal/family issues can sometimes be more important than SL or RL work (this is why people take time off work in RL)
- we are all human – we make mistakes – in RL so in SL – creators are the same
Now in regards to:
“[8:55] Ansor Hoorenbeek: Yes, and consider you lucky… We are very busy and hardly have time for SL”
I think there is loss in translation. English is second language for Ansor and me, but I have more experience to know what he meant but not actually use it myself to express that I have been flat out that “you are lucky you could catch me”.
Working with Ansor in joint project all I can say is that they are descent people who are trying to do right by customer and people they work with. If I did not trust them I would not associate with them.
Yeah this could have been handled differently but you need to give people opportunity to correct the situation before bashing their brand and creating these situations.
Another thing that I wanted to add to this and it is in response to above comment from Ana Otoole (nothing against you Ana)
QUOTE
“I’m dying here lololololol!!!!!
I just read that some “designer†ran a contest that involved the designer’s products and the designer said all the entries sucked?!?!?!?!!!
HAHAHHAHHAHAHAAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAH
Does anyone seriously not understand why I am cramping from laughing so hard?”
Can I just be bold to suggest that there is difference between style and clothing you wear. Hoorenbeek are looking for style created with their outfits and let’s face it clothes can be great and style can still SUCK.
Just by wearing PRADA does not make you stylish. It is what you do with clothes that matters.
Maddox you say:
“Nowhere does it say that you have to BUY products to enter. It is actually presumed that you have HOORENBEEK products already.”
Maddox, do you seriously believe what you write there? Especially when stating it is about to find a new look, you dont do it with items you already HAVE!
also you say:
“Yeah this could have been handled differently but you need to give people opportunity to correct the situation before bashing their brand and creating these situations.”
It was a lot of time to actually correct the situation. the images where there since the 1st of July. Of course by now the style isnt a new look anymore
The statements from you and Ansor actually make me laugh, it is pathetic and shows what it really was : “scam”!
And its not drama to point this out
Krise – new look does not mean buying new stuff but combining it in new and innovative ways.
The Contest is not a scam – the reason why Hoorenbeek did not select anyone is because styles did not capture their brand – which was the whole point of running the competition and therefore the extension.
If you really want to win this reward then you need to come up with an outfit that will please Hoorenbeek and us the judges.
I suggest perhaps visiting some male blogs for inspiration on art of mix and match – which often involves in combining old and new items from same or different brands.
Being bitter about it and trying to bitch about it on judge’s plurk when I actually gave you the answers privately already is not going to help your situation nor will make you a winner.
Only the whiner.
Hello Maddox, thank you for your reply. I appreciate it.
Too bad HOORENBEEK didnt get what they are looking for, but this still looks like changing the rules halfway the game.
“Yeah this could have been handled differently but you need to give people opportunity to correct the situation before bashing their brand and creating these situations.”
Yes indeed, Ansor hasnt been very open about this all and people who have been asking about were not treaten in a very nice way.
Most of us certainly dont bash people or their brand, we just were looking for answers why we never heard a thing anymore. Asking for answers isnt creating drama, but clearity.
I do agree with you Di.
I did acknowledge that this could have been handled differently and I did urge Ansor to let people know when initial inquiries were made by Krise. RL issues prevented this I am sure as well as what to do with the situation, since contest did not quite turn out as expected in terms of response and quality of entries. But you should have been kept in loop thats for sure.
The good thing is contest is still on and people would get understanding from this discussion what to do to win the contest.
Being civil about it and having the right “look” will certainly aid you in this.
okay i dont have much to say… about the discussion in front of me… but ansor said something when Di talked to him:
[5:24] Ansor Hoorenbeek: I didnt say crap at any time… [...] The whole point of the contest is to find some great stylist, like Ben, Takeshi or Oscar.
seriously?
after 18 of july i went to store and check about the contest to may see winners or something,… and there were the outfits by takeshi and oscar i think… and first i thought that they are the winners and that i missed something… but than i was like nah… the outfits are really lame and that they are extremly boring and that the creativitiy is missing…
you talk about creativity? and really i can’t find any creativity at the store outfits,..
i dont want to say that the stylist did not do a good job… but if you say(about the entries) that there isnt creativitiy in it judging them by your store outfits… than i have to say shame on you… the entries i see so far,… are same level or better not worst like ansor said…
and i really like to thank sawyer for speaking up as one of the jury members and for not being polite and loyal about that because of buisness.
and a little tip in the end for the contest makers… if you want creativitiy in the entries than do it first on your clothes,… and than if you want something with creativitiy ( in your mind what ever this will look like)… than use some of your stylist or ask some of the amazing stylist ( and hell yeah i know some amazing ones) personally and dont expect that they would maybe join ( i can imagine why they wont do that)lol ? lol.
and after all if anything goes wrong… you should be honest to your customers about this stuff… if someone had never ask… i think we all had never known this.
oh btw… sorry for the english ;}
god and so on blaaaah.
Ahhh, our old friend Maddox DuPont rears his ugly head, again…
Everything in SL with the Maddox DuPont ‘seal of approval’ seems to have some kind of controversy attached to it.
Yeah, that’s very mature and constructive Jeffrey.
Just by saying something like that does not make it so.
Name one controversy that I have been responsible for that is not tied to me by association with another designer.
I can not help that I know lot of designers, been here for a while – what they do and what I do does not mean it necessarily reflects same values or the way I like to do my business.
I am completely in agreement with you that this particular situation could have been handled differently and I have said that to Ansor as well.
So how can that be tied to me?
Hm. You are full of shit!
isn’t it a bit sad that ansor can’t write something by his own?
to write one single statement about that all?
and not only give answers to those who ask, if no one had ask,… than who cares, right?
and that busy thing is totally bullshit.
it’s customer care and for that you should not be too busy,… but well, to say you are busy is mostly the best way to go out of conversations or trouble fast.
or did he write a statement and i missed it?
and maybe maddox can shut is head for a while and let ansor clear this…? but well you will always find someone for the “dirty” things … indeedos? ;D
Maddox, you ever considered a job as a criminal lawyer? You’d be really bad at it, but you may as well be paid for what you enjoy doing.
No Ansor should not do statement here – this is just another blog (no offense to authors). Anyone who cares about their business should do statements in their group or on their own blog.
Communicating to your customers is more productive than to people who would laugh at your statement anyway.
Totally agree with you Jordan I should shut up – if intelligence of this discussion is on the level of you and business-in-your-box, I am back to sharpening my pencils for a while.
See ya!
Maddox DuPont wrote “I am back to sharpening my pencils for a while.”
Yeah, stick to what you’re good at.
What really kills me is the response you got:
“8:55] Ansor Hoorenbeek: Yes, and consider you lucky… We are very busy and hardly have time for SL”
Well, isn’t that lovely. No time for SL, but time enough to suck people dry of their money.
I may not spend as much time in the game as I used to, but I still make my stuff for the joy of creating, not to profit from it.
At least they could’ve put their response in a less demeaning way.
What’s wrong with being polite to your costumers.
Sigh.
Bah… snobbery.
this is all an interesting read for a lazy afternoon~!
it seems like a bad situation & handled poorly… but one thing that stands out to me over & over is an attitude of entitlement.
hoorenbeek announced the contest but never forced anyone to buy the clothes or enter! it's annoying for sure, & i understand how much time it can take to make your entries. but i really wish people would remember to view SL and RL a bit less seriously.
http://www.your2ndplace.com/node/1210
First of all, we want to apologize with you for the situation about the
contest. Please understand, we are trying to do our best here.
We know we could have handled this in a better way, so we are sorry if
we made some mistakes. We don´t have the experience in these kind of
things (it's our first contest) and we always have a lot to do both in
SL and RL.
It´s not easy to deal with all our customers to give them a
proper care. Making some of the best products in SL is not easy either.
We are always working a lot and sometimes, priorities are hard to
organize and things may get a little bit confusing.
We are the only ones to blame here, the jury has nothing to do we this.
For those who doubt about our good will or think we didn't want to give
the prize, think about this: we could have "given" the prize to one of
our many friends and nobody would have noticed the difference. Problem solved.
But we didn´t want to do that.
That wasn´t right.
So, here we are, as we said, trying to do our best.
On one hand, we only received less than 20 entries. And we need you to
understand this: we have a database of more than 13000 customers in SL, so we expected another response from them.
On the other hand, we were looking for new looks, new styles, something special.
And as we said before, these few entries were not what we were looking
for. No offense, but the truth is that they are very common, there is
nothing special about them.
We NEVER said that the outfits were crap or something like that, but if
you want to win a L$100,000 prize, you need to try harder, working with
our products to create something unique.
Please, try to see it this way: We NEED winners. We sell more than 200
outfits a month, and every outfit costs almost L$ 1,000, so do the math
and you will see that the money is not an issue here.
We WANT new styles and stylists to create new and cool outfits that will
sell good at the store, not just pick the less worst outfit of 20 entries.
Because of this, we decided to extend the contest until November 6th.
So, feel free to participate, encourage your friends to do it and send
us your creations.
And please, BE CREATIVE, do something NEW and DIFFERENT.
We are aware that is IMPOSSIBLE to please everyone, and is obvious to us that some of you LOVES drama. Well, we can´t do ANYTHING about that.
When you do something out of the box, impressive and with a big prize
like this, there will be people trying to critize or giving personal
opinions.
But remember, we are one of the biggest brands in the grid, we have some of the best products you can find and more than 13000 avatars support
our group.
That´s not luck. That´s dedication and hard GOOD work.
Our customers KNOW what kind of business we have. We always try to do the right thing. And if we made a mistake we always try to compensate.
Yes, sometimes we have some unsatisfied customers, but mostly when they are the ones who made a mistake in a purchase. But again, our customers know that we ALWAYS do our best to help them and make them happy.
And by the way… You don´t NEED to buy our products to participate. The
idea is, if you are a customer and bought our products, well, you can
create some new styles.
If you are buying our products only to participate, it's also valid, but
remember this is not a raffle. You will have to do a VERY cool outfit to
win. So don't waste your time or money if you don´t think you have what
it takes to win.
Anyone wanna take the bet that come Nov 6 it gets extended again? lol
Just a suggestion from someone who was going to participate but quickly realized how difficult it would be to "do something new and different" – put your clothing on more layers. I think you would see better results in your entries if people could mix and match more freely on all layers – not just that, but I think it would please current customers and future customers as well.
This competition is TOO DIFFICULT, or maybe even IMPOSSIBLE to win??
"On the other hand, we were looking for new looks, new styles, something special.
And as we said before, these few entries were not what we were looking
for. No offense, but the truth is that they are very common, there is
nothing special about them.
We NEVER said that the outfits were crap or something like that, but if
you want to win a L$100,000 prize, you need to try harder, working with
our products to create something unique."
I know that the stylist for a MUCH larger SL company than Hoorenbeek entered. And I know of several bloggers and fashionistas that were in it too, male and female. There's only so far you can polish a turd. If some of the most innovative and stylish people in SL arent good enough, what do you want? Its YOUR CLOTHES they are working with. You can only make something special if you have a good base to work from. And there is nothing special about your jeans and tee shirts all on the one layer.
and you keep saying that you could have given the prize to one of your friends. How very very big of you to not be dirty cheats. I still think you will in the end.
"And as we said before, these few entries were not what we were looking for. No offense, but the truth is that they are very common, there is nothing special about them. "
Ansor, while you are entitled to run your contest however you see fit, do you honestly not see why a statement like this would upset people? You could have very easily avoided this drama and got the results that you wanted. All you had to do is make a short statement: "We are extending our contest to allow more people to enter." A statement like that would not have generated any hurt feelings, and would have gotten more entries to your contest. By telling your customers that their entries are "too common" you are offending a lot of people. Not everyone reads the blogs, but people *do* talk- and people are finding out about your poor customer service.
That reply…belated as it is…was unnecessary. Ansor, you should have just picked a winner, either from your nose…or preferably the best entry out of all received, and called it a day.
When you have dug yourself a big hole, its best to stop digging, by putting down customers you are putting off potential customers, the fact that you dont do clothes on all layers is a negative in the first place. I have never bought anything at hoorenbeek, mainly because its all samey, overpriced and restrictive
OMG this is hilarious, I have not seen this person’s designs and at $1000L per outfit I have zero interest in doing so.
If you start a competition you are obligated to select and *pay* a winner, regardless of how poor you perceive the entries to be. The contest did not state there was a specific standard to be adhered to, no benchmark was set. Say goodbye to your customers, I can see them running toward the competition LMAO
I just don't understand what his plan is. He's bashing his own customer base, whether those who entered bought clothes for the contest or just had them. That's just plain dumb.
Anyway, I was a customer an I am a blogger. I'll wear what I've bought as the occasion suits. I paid for it, it doesn't hurt him for me to trash it. But I'll never blog their clothes again or buy anything else from them. I used to love their shoes, but there are other designers who are better (Kalnins and House of Curios come to mind) who don't charge nearly as much, include color change scripts so you have many options, and don't defraud and insult their customers.