ASA Adjudication on Bernard Matthews Foods Ltd

Ad

A promotion, on Bernard Matthews products, stated "WIN £5000 TOWARDS YOUR GROCERIES 40 X £5000 CASH PRIZES TO BE WON ONLINE INSTANTLY". Text on the rear of the pack stated "... IT'S SO EASY TO ENTER: 1. Find the 8-digit unique code on the front of the pack 2. Visit our website ... 3. Type in the 8-digit code and contact details in the fields provided ...".

Issue

The complainant objected that the promotion was misleading, because three of the promotional packs he purchased included codes that were only seven digits long and were not accepted on the promotions website.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Bernard Matthews Foods (BMF) said for the original promotion they printed four million codes, including 40 winning codes, on their promotional packs. They said all 40 winning codes were randomly seeded within the four million unique codes supplied in one file to the printer.  They said, on 21 January, they supplied an additional 300,000 unique codes which were requested to be used on additional promotional packs; no codes within that batch were winning codes, and it was within that batch of 300,000 packs that the seven-digit code issue arose.  BMF said, therefore, that the packs which featured the seven-digit code could not have been winning packs.

BMF said they became aware of the seven-digit code issue on 3 February 2009, via the Bernard Matthews Farms Consumer Care Line which had received calls from consumers stating that they only had seven digits on their packs and their codes were appearing as invalid when they tried to enter online.  They said, when they investigated the matter, they discovered there had been a printer error in an isolated batch of promotional labels which led to them carrying seven digits instead of eight.  They said, having consulted with the Institute of Sales Promotion, they resolved the issue by amending the back-end programming of their website so that seven-digit codes were accepted (as well as eight), and the copy was amended on the landing page and terms and conditions page to remove all reference to eight-digit codes.  They said they also supplied the Customer Care Line with a batch of eight-digit codes to supply to consumers in the event that consumers made contact; however, they realised that there was a small window when consumers with seven-digit codes would not have been able to enter.

BMF said neither the seven-digit codes, nor the new eight-digit codes that they supplied to those consumers who contacted them, had a chance of winning, because the 40 winning codes were already in distribution and the seven-digit code printing problem arose in the supplementary 300,000 labels that they printed.

BMF said they had compensated any consumers who contacted them in relation to the seven-digit code error and had taken measures to ensure it did not happen in future.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted an error had been made with the 300,000 new codes BMF had had printed and some had been issued with seven digits.  We considered that, by taking action to allow seven-digit codes to be accepted on their website, and issuing anyone who contacted them with a new eight-digit code, BMF had taken appropriate action to deal with the problem.   However, we considered that by issuing a new set of codes that had no chance of winning, BMF had failed to deal fairly with consumers.  We considered that consumers would expect the winning codes to have been allocated on a random basis and each pack to have an equal chance of winning. We noted BMF had originally allocated the 40 winning codes to the four million packs on a random basis and that each pack therefore had an equal chance of winning.  However, we considered that the decision to print a further 300,000 codes that did not have a chance of winning, and to give additional eight digit codes which also had no chance of winning  to customers contacting the customer care line, did not deal with consumers fairly. We concluded that the promotion breached the Code.  

The promotion breached CAP Code clauses 27.4 (Sales promotion rules) and 31.1 (Sales promotion rules - administration).

Action

We told BMF to take greater care when administering promotions in future.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)