MSE News: How to tell when a brand promotion is a glitch or gaffe

Former_MSE_Helen

"Jeremy Stern, managing director of PromoVeritas, makes sure brands like Cadbury and Pringles run their promotions fairly..."

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Guest Comment: How to tell when a brand promotion is a glitch or gaffe




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mjm3346

Despite paying out more than £1.4 million, its actions got Walkers into trouble with the ASA following complaints from angry customers who lost out on potential winnings

I am sure Walkers were quaking in their boots when they were told don't do it again.

The promotion must not appear again in its current form.

http://www.asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications/2011/3/Walkers-Snack-Foods-Ltd/TF_ADJ_49869.aspx#.VJfnzsgM8

Biker*Chick

An interesting read...but I was shocked by the following paragraph. I must be more naive than I thought! It amazes me that people will go to such desperate lengths to win :eek: At least, in this case, the entrant/s were disqualified

Caution is also required during the life of the promotion – one of our clients ran a promotion to win a 40 inch TV every day. We soon noticed that one household had entered nearly 500 times, again by using slight variations of email addresses and the house number – ie, 2b, 2c, etc.

A quick look at Google Maps revealed it to be a tiny terraced house in Hounslow – not home to hundreds. Because of our terms, which clarified the 'one entry per household' rule, these entries were disqualified and the prize awarded to the next randomly drawn entrant.

Pincher

I blame e-mail. In the old days, you had to put a stamp on the postcard, so you wouldn't send in 500 entries.


It's so easy to weed out multiple entries automatically.
You pick a winner, and search for the same postcode,
and maybe the telephone number as well.

fordred

So what about MSE's Seek Santa from last year? Do you think that was fairly administered?

Dreaming_of_Kubera

Wow, I feel for the person who entered that many times.

Pincher

Dreaming_of_Kubera wrote: »

Wow, I feel for the person who entered that many times.

Not that I have done it, but Apple Mac has a tool called Automator, which records your actions as a macro, so it's possible to do it automatically. The counter measure is the skewed letters thing, naturally.


I don't think anybody would be silly enough to do it manually 500 times. Or is there?

cootuk

I guess there are people that hunt out the comps where the T&C state one entry per email address rather than per household, then swamp the system with auto-emailed entries.


Didn't another Coke promotion of win £££ hourly get swamped with an auto-emailer, the Coke tried to backpedal on the T&C?

[Deleted User]

Why has this article vanished from the MSE News pages and the link from MSE Helen no longer valid?

Rahven

Intrigue! Maybe it's that black hole that has been striking us recently?

mjm3346

Still available on a google cached link at the moment

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mREvxxzgpdsJ:www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/shopping/2014/12/guest-comment-when-brand-promotions-go-wrong-is-it-all-good+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk