Your right, this is actually much worse. Your supplying them a product, that they can exploit whether you win or not. In return you receive nothing for your time, other than the slight chance that you may receive some publicity. That chance goes down considerably when these so called "competition's" are not judged by the public.
On the other hand they get to pic and choose what they want to publicize, as well as reap the benefits of the publicity.
Its still speculative work, and extremely unfair.
Oh I forgot, you do get something, you get to say you entered the competition, but if you don't win, is that really going to help you?