Each year brands across the UK fight to go viral with their Online Advent Calendars to drive engagement for their brands, they generally all give out instant win prizes (from free food and drink to a discount code on items) or they offer 1 larger prize per day (e.g. a holiday, gift hamper etc) which the public compete for (normally by tagging a friend on a post on Instagram or by opening a window and entering their email address in).
Things to consider:
- Lots of these can give out some great prizes, however, in exchange many of them want you to follow them on social media or sign up to email newsletters, these obviously can be reversed after the competition but they hope most will stick around longterm (in short they primarily want to increase their followers).
- Consider using alias email address or even better setup a new email account just for these competitions (but be sure to actually check it during December/January).
- A good % of these are sponsored by other companies (e.g. ITV partner with a company who are giving away a hamper, to enter you have to enter your mobile phone number which open you up to potential future spam texts etc, so be careful of privacy policy and T&Cs before entering info
The 2022 list:
Please let us know other calendars you’ve found and we will update
- Marks & Spencer (a great one this year with lots of great easy to win prizes)
- Jet2Holidays
- Tui
- MyBag (designer handbags)
- Falcon Enamelware (pottery)
- Next
- Boots Photos (free points and prizes)
- BASC – £7000 worth of prizes
- KitGuru (computers)
- Cif (cleaning)
- JCC (decent prices worth £300+ per day) – Enter here
- NottCutts (garden)
- Slim Chickens – In-Store Purchase Required
- Pulsin (chocolate)
- Hammonds (posh food and drink etc)
- Harvey Nicholls (Leeds)
- Ohso Chocolate
- Eleanor Bowmer (home and gift)
- Spar (food essentials)
- Corgi (toy models)
- Outwell (camping etc)
- Decathalon
- Maxwell Scott Bags (post bags)
- MyWeekly (various items)
- FatFace (clothing)
- DHL
- World Tempus (jewellery)
- Groves (haberdashery etc)
- BarChick
- Swarovski
- Knorr Stock Cubes
- Ask Italian
- MyStackers (Jewellery boxes)
- Yours Magazine (various items)
- Remington (shavers etc)
- Books etc
- Jockey Club
- Fairfax & Favour (post shoes etc)
- Coors Beer
- Philips Jarvis Estate Agent (various xmas items)
- The Courier Magazine (days away etc)
- ITV (various items)
- AutoGlym (car cleaning)
- YourDog
- Visit Belfast (e.g. free tickets to a concert)
- HonestJohn
- MySwitzerland
- Funky Pigeon
- Camping and Caravan
- Family Tickets (kids stuff)
- Orchard Toys
- Hornby
- Baby Magazine
- Canary Wharf
- Dots Wheels (car wheels)
- Beautiful Drinks
- Interflora
- Cotton Traders
- SpaBreaks / Wallis
- Little Tikes
- TeaPigs (tea)
- Dorset Cereals
- AirFix
- NineYards (hair stuff)
- Dishmatic (cleaning)
- PetPlan
- Online High Street (various sustainable items)
- Scalextric
- Britain Magazine (Days out etc)
- Runners Need
- English Garden
- ePhotoZine
- Nigella (e.g. pizza oven)
- FalRiver
- Kwikfit (tyres but prizes like Apple Watch)
- The Clean Beauty Club
- SuperDrug Mobile
- UK Campsite
- Sandberg (tech)