Skip to main content
Award Distribution Policy

What Happens If A Contest Holder Does Not Select A Winner?

Atom avatar
Written by Atom
Updated over 7 months ago

Atom contests require a Contest Holder to choose one winner from 100-600+ entries. While our goal is to ensure all winners are selected by Contest Holders, there can be situations when a contest holder does not select a winner. 

If a Contest Holder does not select a winner within 30 days of the close of their contest - and they do not communicate to Atom that they need additional time for winner selection - the award amount is split based on the latest list of names that the CH is considering: 

  • If there are any submissions in the contest's shortlist, the contest award will be equally split between all Creatives who have at least one entry in the contest's Shortlist. (Example - If Creative L, M, N, O, and P all have one or more entries in the Shortlist and the award amount for the contest is $200, each Creative will receive a $40 award.)

  • If there are no entries in the shortlist, the award will be split equally between all Creatives who have at least one of the highest ratings given in the contest. (Example - If the prize amount is $300, there are no entries in the shortlist, and Creative Q, R, S, and T each have one or more Love it ratings - each of these creatives will receive a $75 award.)

  • If the contest has no entries in shortlist and only has No thank you ratings and/or unrated entries, the contest award will be equally split between 4 Creatives who participated in the contest and have at least 5 Love It ratings in other contests in the previous month. These 4 creatives will be randomly selected from the pool of eligible creatives. 

Important Notes

a) We do not disclose the actual entries that resulted in the contest award. However, the list of creatives who received the contest award is visible on the contest page. 

b) Your account must be in Good Standing in order for you to be eligible to receive contest awards. If your account is in limited status for any violation of Atom policy, you may be excluded from receiving such contest awards. 

c) Our goal is to ensure a winner is selected by contest holder in as many cases as possible. Therefore, even though our policy is to award the abandoned contests after 30 days, we sometimes delay the contest award process if there is an active communication with the CH. We also hold off on winner selection if there is an issue with the contest that needs to be resolved with the CH. If you see a contest that is late to be awarded, rest assured that we are actively working on resolving the issue to achieve the most fair outcome for the contest.

d) If a contest is awarded by Atom, and within 30 days of the award date, we hear from the Contest Holder that they would have liked to select the winner of their contest, we reserve the right to cancel the original contest award and provide the full award amount to the winner selected by the Contest Holder.  

e) Non-Guaranteed contests are not eligible for this winner selection policy. If a winner is not selected by CH for more than 30 days in case of a non guaranteed contest, the contest will be cancelled.

f) If a contest is cancelled, no winner will be selected and the contest will not be awarded. 

Here are some more examples to illustrate how this process works

Example 1: 5 Entries from 4 different creatives (A, B, C, D) were shortlisted by the contest holder .

In this case, the contest award will be split equally among the 4 creatives (A, B, C and D) whose entries were shortlisted by the CH.

Example 2: 4 Entries from 4 different creatives (A, B, C, D) received Love It ratings, and were added to the CH's shortlist. The CH removed the creative D's entry from their shortlist, and added a previously unrated entry from creative E to their shortlist.   

In this case the contest award will be split equally among creatives A, B, C and E. 

Example 3:  None of the entries were shortlisted by CH. None of the entries received Like it or Love it ratings. 5 entries from 5 different creatives (A, B, C, D and E) received “On The Right Track” ratings.

In this case, the contest award will be split equally among the 5 creatives (A, B, C, D and E) who received the On The Right Track rating.

Example 4: There are no entries in contest's shortlist. None of the entries in the contest received "Love it"  , "Like It" or "On The Right Track" rating.

In this case the contest award will be equally split among 4 creatives who participated in the contest, and have received at least 5 Love It ratings during previous month in other contests. These 4 creatives will be randomly selected from the pool of eligible creatives.

The Atom's policy on this matter is final and can not be challenged.

Did this answer your question?