We’ve come a long way since the early ’00s, when we all spent about 80% of time outside of school hours on MSN Messenger talking to chatbot SmarterChild – it was fun to ask a bot a/s/l, and for goss on our secret crushes – and updating our screen names to include ALL the emoticons and emo lyrics.
We’re older now, adults, living true adult lives, with phone plans and electricity bills and flatshares. But, we still get a kick out of posing silly/existential questions to automated devices: “Siri, when will the world end? Siri, what’s your fave ice cream flavour? Siri, am I worthy of love?”
Chatbots are also used for much smarter reasons these days: say, to provide automated responses to customer queries on shopping websites; or to dare you to complete a not-so-challenging challenge in the hopes of winning a bloody yacht trip in Italy, worth a cool $56K.
Yep, Optus have set up a chatbot via Facebook Messenger that allows you to Play for Perks.
Once you prove you’re an Optus customer, aged over 14, you’re going to be challenged sorta – but it’s all worth it for the kitty at the end: $2 million worth of both chance-to-win and instant-win prizes they need to offload by April 2.We’re talking prizes like: a year’s worth of fuel, meals from Sushi Hub and Oporto or $1000 cold, hard ca$h.
By playing, you’ll also go into the draw for the yacht trip, literally the only time it will be appropriate for you to sing The Lonely Island at full volume while on holiday in Europe.
The comp runs until April 2 – you can complete two challenges, and thus enter twice, per week from now, now, right now.
Godspeed, young challenger.
*AU14+ Optus customers only. Selected prizes at selected times, until allocations last. Ends 2/4/18 11.59am AEDT. T&Cs apply.
