ASA Adjudication on HJ Heinz Company Ltd

Ad

E-mail, website and on-pack promotion for the "DREAMZ MEANZ HEINZ" prize draw.

a. the on-pack promotion stated "Heinz are giving you the chance to make your dreams come true by giving away £1 million prizes from cars to cash, holidays and more ... Visit www.dreamzmeanzheinz.co.uk or enter via text ... Internet access required. For text entry, text 'Heinz 469510' and your name & address to 81125."

b. the e-mail subject heading stated "Congratulations from Heinz!". The plain text format of the e-mail (shown in the e-mail preview box) stated "congratulations Dreamz Meanz Heinz You've won a Mazda MX5 ... Click here to print off your Thompson holiday voucher". The HTML format of the e-mail stated "You've won a £50 Thomson holiday voucher".

Issue

One complainant challenged whether the promotion was misleading because:

1. the promotional code, which he was asked to provide when he tried to enter via the website was not referred to clearly on the pack, and

2. it did not make clear that those respondents who qualified to receive a £50 holiday voucher would have to spend £500 to use it.

3. Another complainant challenged whether the e-mail was misleading, because the plain text only format was displayed in the e-mail preview screen when it was delivered, which led him to believe he may have won a car. It was later confirmed by Heinz that he had won only a Thompson holiday voucher.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Heinz said they placed enormous value on the trust they had established with their consumers and they worked hard in all areas of their business to maintain that trust. They said, during the preparation of the promotion, they had retained expert independent third party advisors to ensure that they complied with all the relevant rules and laws, including an independent third party observer to advise on the fair implementation of the promotion and an external law firm. They said the Institute of Sales Promotion (ISP) had confirmed that the packaging complied with ISP recommendations.

1. Heinz said the Dreamz Meanz Heinz website was launched on 15 February and at that time the site had stated "See the outside of the promotional pack for the code"; the text on promotional packs stated "for text entry, text Heinz [and then a six digit number which related to the type of product] and your name and address to 81125". They said the pack made clear that entry could be made via the website and the web address was provided.

Heinz said they had been contacted by a consumer on 20 February who said that he did not have the code to enter the promotion. They explained to him how the promotion worked but because of the enquiry they decided to re-examine the wording on the website. On 27 February the website was amended to state "see T&Cs on outside of promotional pack label for code. Code will be 6 digits preceded by the words 'text Heinz'".

Heinz said the complainant was correct that the outside of the pack did not explicitly state that the number provided was a 'promotional code'. However, they believed the website statement made it very clear which number was needed to enter the promotion via the internet. They said, given the space restraints on the outside of the pack and the need to include other important information, they considered that the clearest way of communicating how to enter on the internet was via the website statement. They said approximately 70% of the entries had been made via the website with the other 30% made by text. They therefore considered that entrants to the promotion had understood how to enter the promotional pack code and that the entry conditions were clear and understood by the intended audience.

2. Heinz said the opening page of the Dreamz Meanz Heinz website included a link to the full terms and conditions of the promotion, which made clear that the vouchers were redeemable only when customers purchased Thompson holidays or cruises worth £500. They said to enter the promotion website entrants were required to verify that they had read and agreed to the promotion terms and conditions. They therefore believed the conditions that related to the redemption of the voucher were clear and readily available prior to entry.

3. Heinz said they had received an e-mail on 20 February from a consumer, who asked whether he had won a car. They said they had asked their independent source to check what the consumer had won and later that day they confirmed he had not won a car. They said the confirmation e-mail sent to the complainant had been corrupt. They had identified the technical problem which led to the error on the day before the consumer contacted them; the error was due to an e-mail showing the source code rather than the html, which was due to the recipient's specific e-mail programme stripping out any html when it was displayed in the e-mail preview screen. Because the images were not available, the recipient was presented with an 'alt tag' (alternative text that is shown to describe an image that cannot be displayed). They said the alt tag that was viewed unfortunately related to the car prize, rather than the holiday voucher prize. Heinz said that their agency sent them confirmation on 19 February that the issue with the e-mail coding had been rectified and would not occur again. They said the complainant would have seen the correct information on the website page they viewed directly after entering their code and in the full screen version of the e-mail; only the preview screen had displayed the incorrect code. They, said, however that even the incorrect code included the text "click here to print off your Thompson holiday voucher" and because the correct prize was displayed on both the website page and the full version of the e-mail they queried whether the error was genuinely likely to mislead entrants into believing they had won a Mazda.

Assessment

1. Not upheld

The ASA noted the on-pack terms and conditions did not specifically refer to a promotional code and the actual code had been preceded by the words "text Heinz". However, we noted the promotional pack contained only the six digit number preceded by "text Heinz" and the number to which text entries had to be sent. We considered most consumers would understand that, despite being preceded by the words "text Heinz" the six digit code was the number that needed to be entered on the website, because there were no other relevant numbers on the pack. We also noted that, because of a consumer enquiry, Heinz had amended the website within two weeks of the launch of the promotion and we considered that the text on the website made explicitly clear which code needed to be provided to enter the promotion. We considered that consumers were unlikely to be misled and concluded that the promotion had not breached the Code.

On this point, we investigated the promotion under CAP Code clauses 27.4 (Sales promotion rules) and 34.1 (Significant conditions for promotions) but did not find it in breach.

2. Not upheld

We noted the terms and conditions made clear that the £50 Thompson holiday voucher was redeemable only against holidays or cruises worth £500 and that all website entrants had to agree to that condition upon entering the competition. We also noted that the conditions of the prize were clearly stated on the voucher itself, which could be viewed when the voucher was printed off.

We noted that there were ten different types of prize and thousands of prizes in total and we considered that the requirement to spend £500 to redeem the holiday voucher was unlikely to have an influence on a consumer's decision to take part in the competition. We noted the prize notification e-mail and webpage stated "£50 off, your next Thompson holiday", which we considered made clear that consumers were required to make a purchase to redeem the voucher and we considered that £500 was a reasonable cost threshold that was not significantly more than a consumer would generally expect to pay for a holiday. We concluded that the promotion was unlikely to mislead.

On this point, we investigated the promotion under CAP Code clauses 7.1 (Truthfulness), 27.4 (sales promotion rules) and 34.1 (Significant conditions for promotions) but did not find it in breach.

3. Not upheld

We noted the text, which suggested that the complainant had won a car, had appeared because of a technical error related to the incorrect translation of the html source code, which was apparent only when the e-mail preview screen was viewed in a plain text format. We also noted we had received only one complaint about this error but we understood that any entrant who had viewed their prize notification e-mail preview screen in a plain text format would have seen the incorrect text.

We noted the website and the full version of the e-mail had displayed the correct prize and only the e-mail preview screen had displayed the incorrect information. We also noted the display of the incorrect prize in that screen had been an accidental error and had been resolved less than a week after the launch of the promotion. Although we recognised that the error had confused the complainant, we considered that, because both the webpage, which was what he saw first, and the full e-mail had displayed the correct prize, the promotion had not breached the Code.

On this point, we investigated the promotion under CAP Code clauses 27.4 (Sales promotion rules) and 31.1(Administration) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action required.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)