Over 265,000 people entered the New Covent Garden Soup company's competition for a chance to win a farm worth £500,000. The promotion, which was run in partnership with sister brand Farmhouse Fare on the back of a £2.5 million marketing campaign, seemed like the perfect opportunity to escape to the country for one lucky person. The winner was supposed to be awarded a cheque for £500,000 to be spent on a small farm. Unfortunately, nobody came forward to claim the prize and as a result, no winner was announced.

When it was launched in October 2011, New Covent Garden Soup Co's marketing director Nigel Parrott said: 'This competition is simply unique, and we expect it to attract huge numbers of new consumers to both brands.

'A competition which offers them the chance to escape to the country, changing their lives entirely in an instant, is guaranteed to generate great excitement.'

Players were asked to submit a unique code number on the Win a Farm Competition website to see if they qualified for the top prize. Unfortunately, it seems that nobody claimed the lucky code. The rules of the competition didn't provide for this eventuality and no prize draw was run to pick a winner anyway.

50 pairs of designer wellies were up for grabs as runner-up prizes.

While the top prize attracted a large number of participants, it seems many players were unaware that the competition could close without a winner.

The most recent statement on the company's Facebook page confirms that nobody was awarded the prize: 'Unfortunately, no one was lucky enough to win themselves a farm this time round.'

Mr Parrott added: 'We appreciate that people are disappointed that the "win a farm" prize wasn't won. We are just as disappointed and we take the feelings and comments of our customers very seriously.

'We had 267,000 entries to the competition. Had all packs been entered, someone would definitely have won.

'We are now reviewing how future promotions should be run and are taking these comments into consideration.'

According to Institute of Promotional Marketing CEO Annie Swift, the promotion was legal: 'There was nothing wrong with the terms and conditions. It was legal and it followed the rules which cover promotions like this.'

What do you think? While it may be legal to run a competition in this fashion, was it right for the Covent Garden Soup Co to do so? If the promotion was successful in terms of driving sales and attracting over 265,000 participants, should the promoters have run a prize draw to ensure a winner would be picked? Do you think the promoters damaged their brand and potentially the impact of future competitions? Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below!

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Short-sighted management

Not very impressed by the way this comp was run. Bit short-sighted not to have foreseen this scenario! Think the organisers should've drawn an entry at random from all entrants in this case. This has definitely put me off their brand.

Miss P , 21 Apr 2012

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