The problems?  Well, let me list some of them:

• [SEE UPDATE BELOW] The rules state you must retweet the following message EXACTLY as is.  Any changes to the message will disqualify you. The tweet is 154 characters; That’s 14 characters more than the Twitter limit.  You can’t possibly retweet that exact message.

RT @mtn_dew Chance to win Crackdown 2 bundle each day! Follow @mtn_dew & RT to enter. Only US res 18+. Ends 8/2. Rules http://www.mountaindew.com/crackdown

• The official time-keeping device is the clock on the computer of Twitter’s Webmaster [the guy in charge of the website].  It’s not the service time, the server time, or anything that could even be seen.  It’s a clock that I’m sure the person running the contest doesn’t even have access to.
• According to the rules, the entries become the property of the Sponsor and will not be returned to the Entrant.  This is a little weird as the Entrant never loses control of their entry, and there is no transferral of ownership to the Sponsor.  If anything, it would be Twitter that would retain ownership as they could alter or remove the entry.
• Prizes will be shipped to the Address on file with the Sponsor, however, you don’t submit the address to the Sponsor in your entry.  How would they have your address if you don’t submit it to them?
• Each entry must be individually “key stroked”.  This means hitting Retweet in Tweetdeck or other twitter clients would disqualify you even if you did manage to somehow get the 154 character tweet onto twitter.

On top of being against Twitter’s Rules for Contests, it also has the audacity to provide the people wanting to participate with rules that would disqualify them for simply participating.

I sure hope those in charge of these silly contests would read the rules prior to posting the competition instead of just trying to do what they want and breaking their own rules.

What are your favourite lines from the official rules? Post them in the comments below.

[Update: July 23rd, 2010] – The Mountain Dew team has gotten back to me that they have now changed the rules to make the tweet shorter.  The new link is http://bit.ly/crkdwn .  This doesn’t change the fact that RT contests are annoying and shouldn’t be used.  But, it does mean they at least will respond to your emails.

We decided to start up this blog to point out some of the worst ideas ever executed by Social Media “Experts” and Public Relations groups.

We will be highlighting some profiles and pointing out what they were probably expecting would happen, what went wrong, and how they could have avoided this mess in the first place.