ASA Adjudication on Northern & Shell plc

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A sales promotion in New! magazine was headlined "November giveaway". Underneath were the details of eight different competitions, which required entrants to text a keyword and their contact details, or to enter a code on the publisher's website.

Issue

Five complainants, all of whom had entered one of the competitions and subsequently been named as one of the winners on the publisher's website, objected because they were told they had not won a prize.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Sponge, who  managed premium and non-premium telephony and mobile services for Northern & Shell, responded to the complaints.

Sponge said the promotion had run in issue 238 of New! magazine. They said readers could enter via text, at a premium charge, or for free via a website; the closing date was published as 23.59 on Sunday 11 November 2007. Sponge said, when a promotion closed, their random draw engine used an automated Mersenne twister pseudo-random number generator to select a winner giving each and every entry a fair and equal opportunity to win.

Sponge explained that the promotion had originally been intended to run in issue 237 of New! magazine with a closing date of 23.59 on Sunday 4 November; it was subsequently changed to issue 238 and the closing date was changed to 23.59 on 11 November. They said, however, the closing date was left set on their system as 23.59 on 4 November and the random draw therefore ran at the incorrect time on 4 November taking into account all entries received up to that date. They said the winners of each of the eight prizes in that draw were transcribed and sent to New! magazine on Monday 5 and Tuesday 6 November; during that week the winners were contacted by New! and told they had won a prize.

Sponge said, in that same week, it was noticed that a mistake had been made with the draw date and the draw was therefore reset to run on 11 November at 23.59. They said, however, that when that second draw ran it had not included all entrants because it was mistakenly set to include only entries since the previous draw at 23.59 on 4 November. They said the new draw on 11 November had created a second list of winners for each prize but those winners were not contacted. Sponge said the winners of the first draw were published in issue 243 of the magazine but the  sets of winners from both draws were published on the website. Sponge said 10 of the entrants for the second draw, who had seen their names printed on the website, had contacted them.

Sponge believed neither of the first two draws were fair or compliant because the winners had not been selected from all entries and each entrant had not therefore been given an equal opportunity to win. They therefore decided to run a third, weighted draw. They explained that, for the first prize, the winner for the first draw was picked from 800 entries up to 23.59 on 4 November and the winner for the second draw for that same prize was picked from 200 entries between 23.59 on the 4 November and 23.59 11 November. They therefore decided to conduct another random draw between those two winners that gave the first an 800/1000 probability of winning and the second a 200/1000 probability of winning. They explained that a sequential series of numbers was allocated to each entrant so, in the example of the first prize, the first winner was allocated the numbers 1 to 800 and the second winner was allocated 801 to 1000. They then used a random number generator to select a number within the full range and the entrant with that number would win. They said, when there were multiple prizes, each would have the number of entries for their draw and 10 would be selected from that range.

Sponge said, following that weighted third draw, they had four different customer issues. The first was customers who had won in the first draw and won in the third draw. Sponge said such customers were official winners who had already been notified and sent prizes so no further action was taken. They said the second issue was customers who had won the first draw but not the third draw. Sponge said they had already been notified and sent prizes and, even though they did not win the third draw and were not true winners, they were allowed to keep their prizes and sent no further communication. They said the third issue was customers who had won the second draw and the third draw. Those customers had not been contacted or sent prizes, but after the third draw were official winners. Sponge said additional prizes had been sourced and sent to those customers; if the prizes were not available, cash to the value of the prize printed in the publication was offered. They said the final issue was customers who had won the second draw but had not won the third draw; they had not been sent any prizes and had not been printed in the magazine but were temporarily published as winners on the internet. Sponge said those customers who had seen their name on the internet were sent a letter explaining that their names were printed in error, that the draws were independently conducted in a fair and equal manner and listing the name and town of the official winners.

Sponge sent the full terms and conditions for the promotion.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted an error had been made with the closing date of the promotion on the automated system and the first automated draw for the promotion had therefore run a week early. We also noted the second automated draw, run on the correct date, incorrectly selected winners only from entrants since the first erroneous draw. We noted Sponge had attempted to rectify those problems by running a weighted third draw.

We also noted, following the second draw, New! had mistakenly published the names of the winners of that draw on their website and had then informed those participants who had seen their name on the website that they had not won a prize.

We considered that, because the closing date for the promotion was published in the magazine as 23.59 on 11 November 2007, readers would expect the draw to be run after that time and for it to be a non-weighted, completely random draw involving all entrants. We noted, however, that errors in the administration of the promotion meant that at no time were all entrants given an equal chance of winning.   

We acknowledged that the problems with the promotion were unintentional.  However, we concluded that the errors in the administration of the promotion meant that New! had failed to deal fairly and honourably with entrants and had caused unnecessary disappointment.

The promotion breached CAP Code clauses 27.4 (Sales promotion rules - Introduction), 31.1 (Sales promotion rules - Administration) and 35.6 (Sales promotion rules - Other rules for prize promotions).

Action

We told New! to ensure that promotions were  administered fairly and efficiently in future.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)