Ad description
Instagram posts by Inside Lifestyle, a bespoke travel experience company and Jack Fincham, a TV personality, dated 28 July 2019, for a promotion to win a £15,000 holiday to Dubai:
a. The post by Inside Lifestyle stated “We have partnered up with @jack_charlesf to give away a luxury holiday to Dubai worth a massive £15,000”, “SIMPLY: 1- FOLLOW - @inside.lifestyle 2 – LIKE – THIS POST”, and “Winner Announced = 30/09/2019”.
b. The post by Jack Fincham stated “I have partnered up with @inside.lifestyle to give away a luxury holiday to Dubai worth a massive £15,000” “SIMPLY: 1 FOLLOW - @inside.lifestyle 2 LIKE – This Post Winner Announced = 30/09/2019”.
Issue
The complainant, who noted that neither post included a closing date, that no terms and conditions were available and that no winner was announced, challenged whether the promotion was administered fairly.
Response
Inside Lifestyle Group Ltd t/a Inside Lifestyle said that the competition had been extended due to the large number of applications – over 30,000 – they had received. They said they had flown a celebrity guest to Dubai to announce the winner live on all their social media pages and the winner would be given the choice of dates to redeem their prize. Inside Lifestyle said the closing date was extended to 1 November 2019 and the date was shown across all their social media stories, with the full terms and conditions being shown on their website. They said it was a legitimate competition.
Inside Lifestyle provided evidence in the form of two videos, one of which showed the celebrity guest as they chose a winner and announced the name. The other video showed the same celebrity talking about the prize after the winner had been announced. Inside Lifestyle later said that the winner had been contacted and chosen dates and a guest to accompany them. Jack Fincham said they did not have anything to add in response to the complaint.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA accepted that based on the evidence supplied, a winner for the competition had been chosen and the prize of a holiday to Dubai had been awarded. However, both ads (a) and (b) stated that the winner of the holiday competition would be announced on 30 September 2019. The ad did not specifically state that this was the competition closing date, but we considered consumers would understand that, because the winner was due to be announced on 30 September, the closing date would not be later than that date. We understood the competition was subsequently extended in another Instagram post which stated that the winner would instead be announced on 31 October 2019. Inside Lifestyle said that the competition closing date was 1 November.
The CAP Code stated that closing dates must not be changed unless unavoidable circumstances beyond the control of the promoter made it necessary, and either: not to change the date would be unfair to those who sought to participate within the original terms; or those who sought to participate within the original terms would not be disadvantaged by the change. Inside Lifestyle said that the date had been extended because of the large number of applications they had received. We considered that when setting the original closing date of 30 September, Inside Lifestyle and Jack Fincham should have taken into account that the nature of the prize, the promotion of the competition across all their social media outlets in association with a television celebrity and the announcement of the winner by a celebrity guest in Dubai, would have generated a high level of interest, which should have been foreseen. We therefore did not consider that the change to the closing date arose from unavoidable circumstances beyond the advertiser’s control.
We also considered that the extension of the closing date meant that consumers who had entered by the original date would have reduced chances of winning because of the new entries that were received for a further month after that date and therefore the change disadvantaged those who sought to participate within the original terms of the competition.
The CAP Code also stated that all significant terms and conditions should be clearly included in the ad. Ads (a) and (b) stated details of the prize and how consumers who wished to enter could participate. However, there was no information provided about any entry restrictions, how the winner would be selected, limitations on availability or any conditions attached to the use of the prize, including when the holiday could be booked by, or a closing date for the competition. The ads made no mention that terms and conditions applied or that they could be found on Inside Lifestyle’s website. For those reasons, we concluded the promotion had not been administered fairly and had breached the Code.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 8.1 8.1 Promoters are responsible for all aspects and all stages of their promotions. 8.2 8.2 Promoters must conduct their promotions equitably, promptly and efficiently and be seen to deal fairly and honourably with participants and potential participants. Promoters must avoid causing unnecessary disappointment. (Promotional Marketing), 8.17 8.17 All marketing communications or other material referring to promotions must communicate all applicable significant conditions or information where the omission of such conditions or information is likely to mislead. Significant conditions or information may, depending on the circumstances, include: 8.17 8.17 All marketing communications or other material referring to promotions must communicate all applicable significant conditions or information where the omission of such conditions or information is likely to mislead. Significant conditions or information may, depending on the circumstances, include: 4.A, 8.17 8.17 All marketing communications or other material referring to promotions must communicate all applicable significant conditions or information where the omission of such conditions or information is likely to mislead. Significant conditions or information may, depending on the circumstances, include: 4.C, 8.17 8.17 All marketing communications or other material referring to promotions must communicate all applicable significant conditions or information where the omission of such conditions or information is likely to mislead. Significant conditions or information may, depending on the circumstances, include: 4.E, and 8.18 8.18 Marketing communications that include a promotion and are significantly limited by time or space must include as much information about significant conditions as practicable and must direct consumers clearly to an easily accessible alternative source where all the significant conditions of the promotion are prominently stated. Participants should be able to retain those conditions or easily access them throughout the promotion. (Significant conditions for promotions).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Inside Lifestyle Group Ltd and Jack Fincham to ensure that in future, closing dates of promotions were not extended unless unavoidable circumstances beyond their control made it necessary and participants were not disadvantaged. We also told them to ensure ads for promotions clearly included all significant terms and conditions.
CAP Code (Edition 12)
8.1 8.2 8.15.1 8.17 8.17.4.C 8.18 8.24 8.28.3 8.28.5 8.17.4.E 8.17.4.A
