ASA Adjudication on Kimberly-Clark Ltd

Ad

A competition on the Andrex website, titled "Hello Softie", featured an animated puppy sitting behind five toilet rolls, each of which had an image of a gold feather on them. Text underneath stated "For the chance to WIN £500,000 worth of great family prizes, help your puppy collect 5 gold feathers by answering the questions correctly". The second part of the competition featured a grid with nine question marks in separate squares. Text underneath stated "Click on 3 question marks in the grid - if you reveal 3 images that match, you win that prize! That's £500,000 of great family prizes to get your paws on - Good Luck!".

Issue

The complainant, who was surprised to discover that only 11 out of 916 potential prizes had been won, and who later found out that some gamecards in task two had no matching images, challenged whether the terms and conditions implied that task two would always contain a game card with three matching images.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Kimberly-Clark Ltd (Kimberly-Clark) submitted a copy of the terms and conditions of the competition and explained that they were fully published on the Andrex website for the duration of the promotion. They explained that there was no limit to how many times each player could play the game. They said the promotion started on 14th April 2008 and ran for 110 days until 17th August 2008. Kimberly-Clark pointed out that the terms and conditions of the promotion had been approved by the Institute of Sales Promotion (ISP).

Kimberly-Clark explained that, in order to give every player a fair chance of winning, the 916 winning game cards were distributed evenly throughout the period of the promotion. They said the selection of winning cards, and therefore which prizes were inserted into the game on a particular day, was subject to an automated process and was entirely random. They explained that non-winning gamecards had to be inserted into the system in order to allow players to play the game at any time during the day, and to ensure that the prize winning gamecards would be available to players throughout the entire promotion. They said the number of non-winning gamecards which needed to be served would vary day by day, depending on the number of players, and the selection of times when winning and non-winning gamecards were served to players was also random. Kimberly-Clark submitted data that showed the number of winning and non-winning gamecards fed into the system on each day of the promotion.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted Kimberly-Clark's response and the terms and conditions they provided. We also noted that the ISP had advised only that the terms and conditions complied with ISP guidance. We noted that the terms in relation to task two stated "Players must locate 3 matching prize images randomly hidden behind 9 squares by clicking on three squares only". We considered that that statement could be interpreted to mean that gamecards served to players during task two contained three matching images. We noted that the instructional text featured on the competition screen stated "Click on 3 question marks in the grid - if you reveal 3 images that match, you win that prize", and we considered that those instructions could also be interpreted to mean that the grids would contain three matching images. We understood, however, that the vast majority of gamecards served to players in task two were non-winning cards and did not contain three matching images, and we were concerned that consequently the terms and conditions and instructional text might give players an unrealistic expectation of their chances of winning a prize. We therefore considered that the on-screen instructions for the second task, as well as the terms and conditions, should have made it clear to players that not all gamecards would contain three matching images. Because they did not we concluded that the competition was misleading.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 7.1 (Truthfulness), 27.4 (Sales promotion rules), 31.1 (Administration), 34.1a (Significant conditions for prize promotions) and 35.2 and 35.8 (Other rules for prize promotions).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Kimberly-Clark to make it clear in the terms and conditions and on-screen instructions of future similar sales promotions that not all gamecards would contain three matching images.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)