Imagine some one offering you more money to spend their money. That's a pretty sweet deal and that's exactly what STABILO Malaysia did.

By Kelvin Goh Wong

In STABILO's 7-hour Shopping Challenge, participants were given RM700 and a total of 70 minutes to run around the first floor of Sunway Pyramid purchasing items that are creatively related to the number seven.

The sight of participants clad in their STABILO polo t-shirts, armed with their huge eco-friendly bag, dashing around the mall was really quite amusing.

From jerseys to perfumes, CDs to teddy bears, the participants really got creative with their spending. Some chose to split-up while others decided to stay together.

When the dust settled it was the father-son duo of Tan Kong Ang and Tan Cheng Leng that walked away with the grand prize of RM 7,000. The pair was short listed via the social network, Facebook

Kong Ang was elated that he and his son were able to win the prize money, he added that some serious planning was needed to win.

"I have entered a few different competitions before and have never come across such a challenging competition. We visited so many shops searching for items relating to the number seven," he said.

Najibah Hassan and Zamri Rambli from New Straits Times were the winners in the media category and also walked away with RM 7,000.

Zamri said they did no planning whatsoever, and that was probably the secret to their success.

"We didn't expect to win. We just wanted to enjoy ourselves and have fun and that probably led us to win as there was no stress involved," Zamri said.

The General Manager of STABILO Malaysia, Shawn Goh, said that the 7-Hour Shopping Challenge was great fun for everyone.

"We had a blast watching the participants running around the shops trying to purchase as many items within 70 minutes. We were also overwhelmed by the creativity these participants had in purchasing items relating to the number seven," he said.

Spectators were also kept entertained as there were game booths featuring Guitar Hero and Wii Sports. Winners of those games were also awarded with a STABILO goodie-bags.