The media loved Roxy Jacenko’s new promotion, but didn’t look too closely

PR queen Roxy Jacenko has been doing the rounds promoting a new giveaway open to people who sign up to her online “brand bootcamp“, telling Sunrise: “You need to incentivise people to study, and what better way than with a $10 million house, a Rolex or a Birkin bag?”

Domain got in on the act, with the headline “Roxy Jacenko is giving away a $10 million Mediterranean-style waterfront pad”.

The catch? It’s to promote her online business course, Brand Bootcamp — signing up to the course (which starts from $29) will put you in the draw to win the home, as well as some other luxury prizes. She’s good.

Is that what the catch is? At one point in the Sunrise interview, host Larry Emdur asked Jacenko what the exact chances of winning were, and she deflected with a gag about how dreadful she was at maths. Neither Sunrise nor Domain detailed the exact way the promotion works, as set out on the website’s terms and conditions, as a tipster directed us to do.

Point five specifies that an applicant, should their name be drawn, has to select both of the two “winning” envelopes out of 250 available options in order to win the house. The odds of picking the right envelopes alone is 1 in 62,250. However, those odds balloon depending on how many people enter the draw, lowering your chance of being selected to participate. For example, if 50,000 people apply, the odds of being chosen and selecting the right envelopes jump to 1 in 12,500,000.

We put it to Jacenko that represents a minuscule chance of anyone winning, and she promptly got back to us to insist the offer was simply “a slice of education WITH incentive” and that she’d been perfectly clear.

“There IS A CHANCE and that is how we are communicating the offer and always have been, we are offering someone the chance to play to WIN the property and guaranteed conciliation prizes if it is not won via the method,” Jacenko told Crikey in an email. “There are lots of ways of looking and judging this, and of course there are ALWAYS going to be people with an opinion — I am attached to it!” 

“The fact is go buy a scratchy from your local newsagent, the scratch-off bit gets all under your nails (cause who carries a coin these days), and on the carpet of your car & you are looking at top prize odds on a $5 ticket of 1 in 1,700,000.”

We also asked Jacenko what the plan was for the house if no contestant draws both winning cards.

“We don’t have one, my business partners and I want to see someone end up living their best life in the property and enjoying it as much as we have enjoyed bringing this opportunity to market.”

Clarification: An earlier version of this piece suggested Jacenko had “no plan” in the event that both winning cards were not selected. This has been amended to clarify that her answer was in response to a question solely regarding the house portion of the prize.