The Pilot Cutest Kids and Pets Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

Who this vote is actually for: families and pets, not businesses

Two children's or pets' photos, submitted a couple years apart, are the entire confirmed run behind this contest: a listing dated 2023, then another in 2025, with nothing surviving in between. A parent or pet owner deciding whether to enter is looking at a program still building its own history, one photo vote at a time, rather than a decade-old civic institution.

The Pilot Promotions organizes the contest and hosts it through the Second Street network, where the listing itself carries the name CFA Cutest Kids & Pets 2025 at pilot.secondstreetapp.com. A second address on the same account, pilot.secondstreetapp.com/CFA-Jan-Cutest-Kids--Pets, confirms the identical ballot under a shorter path. The confirmed 2025 window opened January 2 and closed January 24. Past that window, what the page states goes quiet fast: no category breakdown appears anywhere, and no ceiling on repeat voting is published either.

No published roster of categories and no daily-vote rule exist on that page; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

One promotions account, several unrelated giveaways sharing the same address

pilot.secondstreetapp.com is not reserved for kids and pets. The same Second Street account run by The Pilot Promotions carries a slate of separate promotions, each with its own format and its own dates.

None of those other promotions runs a photo vote for kids or pets; the sweepstakes carry no voting step at all, just entry and a drawing, and the survey collects text opt-ins rather than photo submissions.

Why the bare account address is not enough

Arriving at pilot.secondstreetapp.com without the exact contest path could surface any one of these unrelated promotions, depending on what happens to be live that week. Either confirmed address for this photo vote, the CFA-dated one or the shorter CFA-Jan one, is worth bookmarking directly rather than trusting a general search once a new window opens.

A family photo vote among North Carolina's business and sports ballots

This kids-and-pets photo vote is one program among several very different North Carolina ballots this site also documents, and a family entering here shouldn't confuse this contest's own rules with an unrelated business or student-athlete poll's.

Each of those six programs keeps its own separate judging and its own results, entirely apart from a photo of a child or a pet. A strong showing here changes nothing on any of them, and the reverse holds too.

What that means for a search using a broad phrase like "North Carolina photo contest"

A broad search can just as easily surface a business readers' choice ballot or a student-athlete poll as it does this kids-and-pets vote. Only pilot.secondstreetapp.com, and the January 2 to January 24 window it confirmed for 2025, actually belongs to this program; whatever a future cycle looks like is what that address states first.

Campaigning on a two-edition history with a real gap in the middle

A family weighing whether to enter has less past pattern to lean on than a program running an unbroken decade would offer. With only 2023 and 2025 confirmed, and nothing published for 2024, working inside whatever window is actually live matters more than counting on a fixed yearly slot a year out.

Real relatives, friends, and neighbors who already know the child or pet, contacted more than once over the weeks a window remains open, are what genuinely lifts an entry like this one, whatever the eventual per-voter rule turns out to be once The Pilot Promotions publishes one. Leaning on real supporters rather than automated or fake activity carries more weight for a listing with just two confirmed years behind it than for one running a full decade, since a flag on an entry here has a thinner history to absorb the risk.

Being entered and being declared a winner are two different things; only The Pilot Promotions' own process decides the second once voting closes. is buying votes legal draws the line between genuine outreach and a shortcut best avoided, useful reading before spending real effort chasing this contest's third edition. Buying votes online describes what a paid outside service actually does for a photo vote shaped like this one, while building real momentum for an online ballot sticks to outreach that holds up regardless of any future vote cap.

One more point worth weighing for a program with a gap already in its own timeline: an entry that built a following in 2023 carries no guaranteed audience into 2025 or whatever cycle follows, since nothing published ties one edition's supporters to the next. Starting fresh each time a window opens is the more realistic plan here than counting on an established base to simply return.