ASA Adjudication on Nusystems Ltd

Ad

An e-mail from iheadphones.co.uk stated "Win a pair of Shure SE530 - RRP £329.99" in the subject line. Body copy stated "REVIEW AND WIN! SHURE SE 530 RRP £329.99 - Review a product on our website and win a pair of Shure SE530." Footnote text stated "Review any product on www.iheadphones.co.uk during October 2007 and the writer of the best review will win a pair of Shure SE530 in ear headphones worth £329.99. Reviews will be judged by our staff and the winner will be chosen on 16th November 2007."

Issue

A recipient challenged whether the competition was genuine and had been administered correctly.

CAP Code

Response

Nusystems Ltd t/a iheadphones (iheadphones) said, in order to encourage customer reviews on their website, they decided to run a competition for the best review, with the Shure SE530 headphones as the prize. They said they sent a basic newsletter out to their customers and set a closing date of 16th November 2007 for the competition.

iheadphones said the response to the competition was overwhelming and that they had been inundated with reviews for hundreds of products. They explained that, by the time it came to judging the competition, the two members of staff who had the best knowledge of all the products, and whose job it was to pick the winners, were no longer with the company. iheadphones said they were extremely busy during the Christmas sales period and were in the process of trying to recruit new staff. They said they simply did not have time to read through all the reviews and judge the competition, and were unaware of the severities of delaying the process of choosing a winner.

iheadphones apologised that the competition had not been judged correctly at the time. They said they had been recruiting more employees to avoid a recurrence of the situation. They said they had made it a priority to select a shortlist of entries from the competition, which they were in the process of judging, and would notify the winner once he or she had been chosen.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA noted that iheadphones had received an overwhelming response to the competition, which had coincided with their busy Christmas sales period and the loss of two key members of staff charged with judging the competition. We acknowledged that the problem with the competition's administration was largely beyond iheadphones' control, and we welcomed iheadphones' assurance that the competition entries would still be judged and a winner chosen, in line with the original ad. We therefore considered that the competition was genuine. However, we considered that the lengthy delay to the judging process could cause participants unnecessary disappointment. We also considered that iheadphones should have notified consumers that the competition would be delayed, and provided them with details of when the winner would be decided. Because the competition had not been administered in that way, we concluded that the ad breached the Code.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness), 27.4 (Sales promotion rules), 31.1 (Administration) and 34.1(c) (Closing date).

Action

We told iheadphones to make sure that future competitions were administered correctly.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)