Ad description
A competition, on the website www.maydaymaths.com, stated "Picture & Joke Competition To be in with a chance of winning, get your creative head on and make us a picture! Your picture can be of anything you want, but it should have a maths or ConquerMaths theme somewhere. ... Your entry must be your own work ... we'll be checking! If you're not much of an artist, why not send us your funniest maths joke ... You'll stand the same chance of winning a prize ... All entries will be posted on this site and we'll be taking votes to decide the winner. Entry is free so get your thinking hat on and send us your entries!". Text further down the web page stated "CURRENT ENTRIES & VOTING ... Rate your favourites to help choose a winner! Any entries where voting fraud is detected will be immediately disqualified".
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the promotion breached the Code, because significant conditions were not made clear.
Response
GenericMaths Ltd t/a Conquermaths.com said the terms and conditions of the competition were made available to all competition entrants, via a link on the online entry form which stated "Before you enter, it is important that you have read the Rules, Terms and Conditions".
They understood that the complainant was particularly concerned that the ad implied that the winning entry would be selected by a public vote, when in fact it was to be decided by a judge. They highlighted that the ad stated "Rate your favourite to help choose a winner"; they considered that made clear to entrants that the vote would 'help' to choose the winner rather than being the determining factor. They added that the terms and conditions included the condition "Votes are used to assist judges in choosing a winner and do not automatically signify standing within the competition". They therefore considered the method by which the winner would be selected had been made clear to participants at the time of entry.
Conquermaths further understood that the complainant was concerned that it was not clear that votes from outside of the UK, and multiple votes from the same IP address, would not be counted. They said that entry to the competition was only open to UK residents and it may have been that the complainant was informed, in error, that that restriction also applied to votes. They confirmed that the restriction did not apply to votes. They said the terms and conditions stated that only one entry per household would be accepted, and that votes would be checked using a variety of criteria. They said that in most cases it was reasonable to assume that multiple votes from the same IP address were likely to be from the same household. Where an IP address related to a school or other organisation where it could reasonably be expected that multiple votes would be submitted, all votes were counted where the session ID was unique.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered that in the context of the ad's first reference to the method by which the winner would be chosen ("... we'll be taking votes to decide the winner"), and in the absence of any references to judges, it was likely that consumers would understand the claim "Rate your favourites to help choose a winner!" to refer to the help voters would give to their chosen entry by voting, rather than to mean that the winner would be chosen by a judge instead of by public vote. We considered the claim "Any entries where voting fraud is detected will be immediately disqualified" was likely to reinforce that impression, because of the emphasis it placed on the importance of non-fraudulent voting. We considered the overall impression of the ad was that the winning entry would be chosen by public votes only.
A link to the competition's terms and conditions was drawn to entrants' attention on the online competition entry form. We acknowledged the terms and conditions included "Votes are used to assist judges in choosing a winner and do not automatically signify standing within the competition", which we considered made clear that votes were not the key criteria by which the winning entry would be chosen. However, we considered that term contradicted rather than clarified the implication in the ad that the winner would be chosen by votes. We also noted the term did not make clear the criteria that would instead be used in judging the winning entry over other entries. For those reasons, we concluded that the significant condition of how the winner would be chosen had not been made sufficiently clear to entrants and the ad was in breach of the Code in that regard.
With regard to votes being discounted, we understood from Conquermaths' response that they had checked the IP addresses from which votes were made when deciding whether votes would be accepted. We understood they had not allowed multiple votes from the same household, but where they could identify an IP address as a school or other organisation they counted all votes with separate session IDs. We also noted their clarification that votes from outside the UK were allowed. As referenced above, the ad stated that entries would be disqualified where voting fraud was detected, and in addition the terms and conditions stated that "Votes are checked using a variety of criteria. Anyone suspected of cheating will be immediately disqualified". However, there was no reference in either the ad or the terms and conditions to votes being discounted, which is what we understood had happened to some votes for the complainant's entry. We also noted that whilst the terms and conditions stated that only one competition entry would be accepted per household, they did not state that multiple votes per household would not be accepted or define that a 'household' would be determined by its IP address; nor did they state any other criteria by which votes would be discounted. We considered the criteria by which votes would or would not be counted amounted to a significant condition to the competition and, because those criteria had not been communicated to entrants (or to voters), the ad was also in breach of the Code in that regard.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12)
3.1
3.1
Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.
and
3.3
3.3
Marketing communications must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information. They must not mislead by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner.
Material information is information that the consumer needs to make informed decisions in relation to a product. Whether the omission or presentation of material information is likely to mislead the consumer depends on the context, the medium and, if the medium of the marketing communication is constrained by time or space, the measures that the marketer takes to make that information available to the consumer by other means.
(Misleading advertising),
3.9
3.9
Marketing communications must state significant limitations and qualifications. Qualifications may clarify but must not contradict the claims that they qualify.
(Qualification),
8.28
8.28
Participants must be able to retain conditions or easily access them throughout the promotion. In addition to rule 8.17, prize promotions must specify on all marketing communications or other material referring to them, the following information, clearly before or at the time of entry, where the omission of any of the specified items is likely to mislead.
and
8.28.6
8.28.6
in a competition, the criteria and mechanism for judging entries (for example, the most apt and original tiebreaker)
(Prize Promotions).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Conquermaths.com to ensure they communicated significant conditions to competitions to participants before or at the time of entry.
