All PR is good PR?

Here's a thing.
A small artisan producer decides to host an informal competition to guess the volume of product they make over a period of time.  They ask entrants to send their entries via a public forum so all entries are visible to all other entrants.  Shortly after closing time of the competition, they announce the result of the competition and the volume of product they produce in the specified time.  Strangely the chosen winner of the competition hasn't picked the correct answer.
In fact 3 other entrants were closer. But they weren't the "chosen" winner.
This series of events really interests me.  Twitter, Facebook etc are all about opening lines of communication.  We use these forms to meet new people, share ideas and promote ourselves, our products or ideas.  Most people are completely transparent about doing this which is great.  As a producer or promoter, it is fine to contact people directly and offer free product in the hope - not a promise - that they may blog or tweet about how great the product is.  It is a great and immediate route to both feedback and to your customer.  But when you manipulate the results to promote your product, it seems to say more about you and your standards than you might initially think.
Why do it?