A little bit of daydreaming

Posted on May 16, 2012 by mark

Every once in a while we like to push the stop button, run away from reality and jump on the daydreaming train. Why? Because it’s fun to imagine how your life could have been if you had super powers or if you were one of the Beatles.

Therefore, in the spirit of daydreaming we used our weekly quick poll to see what are your fantasies in different scenarios.

The first idea we wanted to test was the classic lottery win. Although we were in the daydreaming zone, one of the most voted options in many countries such as Italy, UK or Germany was “start your own business”. It seems that all those stories about lottery millionaires which went disastrously wrong made everybody think twice about how to spend a big amount of money. Another popular answer was “retire on a tropical island”; in the end, who can say NO to the sweet thought of early retirement.

My personal choice would be a combination of these two: I would retire on an island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean but in order not to get bored I would open a bar on the beach where I could sell cheap Mojitos and cold beers.

The second scenario was the dream job. In this case, all across our panel kingdom the vote results were unanimous: “eccentric billionaire” is definitely the most desired job of them all. Next on our check list will be to explore the eccentricity of each one of you (we will be back with special quick polls for this matter).

As a conclusion to this little experiment: don’t forget that daydreaming is harmless and as a famous writer once said “Everything starts at somebody’s daydream”.

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Why share?

Posted on April 26, 2012 by mark

One of the things we like to repeat over and over again is: “Sharing your opinions is important”. Of course, the most common reaction to this “expressing your thoughts” story is first of all to ask what’s so important about this it.

We usually prefer to write down all the reasons, but this time we thought a different approach might be more convincing.

Here it goes:

If we have succeeded in changing your views or you just liked our video, feel free to share it with your friends!!!

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Who’s the luckiest bunny chaser?

Posted on April 19, 2012 by mark

As you probably know, two weeks ago we were faced with one of the greatest dangers we had ever encountered. Our website was about to be invaded by cute little bunnies, when we realised that we can save the day with the help of our panellists.

Over the Easter weekend, more than 1000 members of the Ipsos Access Panels community joined our action and started to look for the hidden bunnies. Five days later the invasion was stopped.

As we promised, at the end all the panellists who had lent us a hand were entered into a 5000 points prize draw. Therefore, after a week of counting all the e-mails received and organising the raffle, Ludivine D. from France turned out to be the luckiest bunny chaser and won the draw! Congratulations!

We want to thank you all for your enthusiasm and we await you at next year’s Easter Chase, which will be even more fun and packed with adventure!

PS: Because many of you wanted to know how many bunnies were hidden on the website, here is the answer: we had 5 bunnies inserted in 5 different pages and, if you couldn’t find those ones, we hid 20 more in the two orange banners. Of course, everybody who told us how many bunnies they found was given a chance in our draw.

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Spring plans

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Alex

Well, now that spring is in full swing, we hope you all spent the first day of this season doing exactly what you wanted. The Spring Friend Referral Season is still open, so if during his time you invite at least 3 friends to join our panel you will receive 200 points for each of them!

But since summer is now approaching fast, we then asked you in another poll what your holiday plans for the year were. Some of you apparently want nothing more than to relax on a wellness vacation (15%), while others are planning to visit exotic countries (21%) or do home improvement (14% – I suppose that’s one way of relaxing…). And yet, a large part of the respondents said they had no plans for a holiday this year – 42%. Well, whether you’ll be having a stay-at-home vacation or go on spur of the moment, adventure-filled trips this year, make sure you spend your time doing the things that you really like and that make you feel good! :-)

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The Easter Bunny Chase

Posted on April 5, 2012 by mark

When it comes to Easter one of the most popular traditions, especially among children, is the egg hunt.

For those who don’t know very much about this subject, it all started a few centuries ago in Germany with an egg-laying bunny named “Osterhase”. To cut the long story short, the tradition later evolved into a game that first became popular in America (being brought there by German immigrants) and soon spread across the globe.

In order to celebrate our inner child, we are organising a special search/hunt on our website, but with bunnies instead of eggs!

What are the rules?

1)      Look for the bunnies who are hiding all over our website.

2)      Once you’ve found them all, count them and send us an e-mail at epanel-uk@ipsosinteractive.com, mentioning the total number of bunnies found.

3)      If you are right, you will be included in a prize draw for no less than 5000 points!

Let the chase begin!!!

For full contest rules, please click here. Don’t forget to like us on Facebook and to get the latest updates and news about all of our contests and other campaigns!

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The pranking machine – the final hours

Posted on March 31, 2012 by mark

The first day of April has been celebrated for centuries with incredible shenanigans such as the Edison’s food machine, the Kokomo perpetual motion machine, the metric time or the famous Sidney iceberg.

In the spirit of such glorious events, we created the pranking machine, the ultimate tool for all the pranksters in our panel. All week long we have been working around the clock with our top scientist team from all over the world. We’ve done lots of tests, covered all the holes, welded all the parts and in the end covered it with a coat of paint.

The machine is almost finished!!!!Stay tuned on our Facebook page, because at 12:00 at midnight we unleash a pranking force which has never been seen on this earth:-).

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April Fools’ Day

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Alex

As everybody knows, the 1st of April is April Fools’ Day. What does that mean? It means it’s the one day of the year when you can play all sorts of practical jokes, hoaxes or pranks on other people without (too much) fear of any repercussions. :-) How did it all start? Well, it was a sort of gradual process, actually…

Much like in the case of Valentine’s Day, by the most recent accounts it would appear that the April Fools traditions as we know them today can be traced back to the same Geoffrey Chaucer – this time in one of his “Canterbury Tales”, where the rooster Chauntecleer is tricked by a fox on the fateful day of the 1st of April. Playing tricks or hoaxes on others on this date started slowly to become a custom throughout the Middle Ages, being referenced for example in 1508 by a French poet as the “April fish” (‘poisson d’avril’) tradition – a practice whereby one would try to attach a paper fish on another’s back without being noticed, and which is still done today in France, Italy or Canada.

Nevertheless, such days dedicated to practical jokes and pranks can be found the world over – from Iran (where some claim the tradition actually originated, in 536 B.C.) to the United States, through to Korea, Poland (where any serious activities – even in news broadcasts – are strictly avoided on April 1st), Denmark, Sweden (where the day is sometimes celebrated on May the 1st) or Spain and Latin America – where the pranking day is more common on the 28th of December.

April Fools’ Day has given rise to some very…interesting practical jokes over the years, from the Englishman who mailed himself through the post, to the staged volcanic eruption in 1974 in Alaska or the fake visit of the “Emperor of Abyssinia” (in fact, the aristocratic joker Horace de Vere Cole, accompanied by, among others, the writer Virginia Woolf) onboard the British ship Dreadnought, whereupon they exclaimed “Bunga-bunga!” in admiration of the vessel.* :-) What hoaxes will you pull on the upcoming 1st of April?

*From: http://artoftheprank.com/category/all-about-pranks/the-history-of-pranks/

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What is the pranking machine?

Posted on March 27, 2012 by mark

This year, we decided to surprise all our prank loving panellists. Therefore, a few months back we gathered in our laboratories and started working on a devious plan: to create the perfect pranking machine.

For this task, we recruited and interviewed the best pranksters in Europe, we researched the secrets around the most intriguing shenanigans of all time, we designed complicated plans and many more. Surely, because we are online specialists, it was common sense to expect that the machine would be an online masterpiece which would be hosted on our Facebook page.

We will unravel the amazing machine exactly on the 1st of April, in order to properly celebrate this special day. Until then, stay tuned on our blog and Facebook wall for more news and fun stuff.

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This is the springtime of our sweet content

Posted on March 23, 2012 by mark

The waiting has finally ended. We can now throw all those coats, boots and scarves back into the dresser because it’s officially, spring! The nice warm weather may have announced the arrival of the spring but it wasn’t fully official until the equinox which occurred this week.

We can celebrate this milestone like our ancestors did back in their time by building an altar dedicated to Mother Earth, or by planting seeds in the fields. Of course, these traditions seem a little bit like last millennium.

Therefore we asked in one of our weekly polls what where your plans for the first day of spring. A simple but relaxing walk in the park was one of the most voted options in many countries such as Britain (39%), Germany (40%) or Italy (42%). Surely, like any other survey, there were also exceptions such as France or Hungary where the number one option was spring cleaning.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter if you celebrated the first day of spring with a little bit of cleaning or tuned yourself to lazy mode as long as you had fun.

PS: Don’t forget that you can also celebrate the spring spirit here in the Ipsos Access Panels community! During the Spring Friend Referral Season if you invite at least 3 friends to join our panel you will receive 200 points for each of them!

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S.F.R.S. is now open!!!

Posted on March 19, 2012 by mark

What does S.F.R.S. mean?

Could it be the initials of a secret society with a super secret plan to take over the world?

Or…an extraordinary league of super heroes?

Or…an imaginary land where unicorns run free in the meadows?

We’ll give only two clues: it involves spring and friends. If you want to find out the secret log into your account and check out the “Refer Friends” tab :) .

 

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