
THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW
Highlighting best practice
2| PROMOVERITAS
from the client so that they know their
campaigns are in safehands.
Here in the UK, the marketing industry
is regulated by the Advertising
Standards Authority, who seek to
protect consumers from being misled
by extravagant claims, prizes that
don’t exist or suspect selection of
winners. The CAP Code requires
promoters to select winners of prizes
“according to the laws of chance…
and under independent supervision”.
Competitions should be carefully
judged, and at least one of the judges
needs to be independent. Instant-win,
or “Willy Wonka”-style promotions are
great fun, but they need to have an
independent audit statement showing
that all prizes have been distributed
fairly and randomly.
Gone are the days of picking winners
out of a hat or wading through
answers on postcards. Our random
winner selection is done using a secure
computer program. In addition, we can
extract entry data from social media
sites and post the results in minutes.
Alternatively, we can rapidly develop
web-based entry microsites to make it
easy to enter a prize promotion, helping
to bring a campaign to life with the
minimum offuss.
Outside of the UK, there are more-
demanding rules and the possibility
of hefty fines or imprisonment for
poorly run promotions. So, via an
extensive global network of legal
experts, we have built up an enviable
knowledge of all the various rules,
laws and idiosyncrasies of running
promotions in almost every country of
the world, from Aruba to Russia, from
Kazakhstan to Canada. For example,
in Italy, a promoter needs to register a
promotion with the relevant ministry
in advance, pay taxes on the value of
the prize and ensure that all data is
stored only on Italian soil. By contrast,
in Vietnam, the value of reward
gifts that can be offered is heavily
restricted, except if the promotion
runs in the 30 days before the Lunar
New Year holiday period. If you are
running a promotion in the USA, it is
best to keep the value of prizes below
$600 to avoid a lot of tax paperwork
whereas in the Middle East, regulation
is heaviest, and running a promotion is
extremely difficult.
We handle it all. Through our core
values of integrity, passion and
knowledge leadership, we ensure that
all the promotions we work on are
always fun yet fair and safe for the
public to enter.
Our company’s growing team of legal,
marketing and logistics specialists
combine their deep understanding
and experience to plan and execute
promotions of all sizes online, on social
media, in print, in store and on pack.
For the past few years, Cadbury have
run “Hunt the White Creme Egg”: we
oversaw the creation of the valuable
white eggs, worth up to £10,000 each,
before discreetly hiding them in stores
across the UK, bringing joy to those
who discover that they have won a
tidy cash sum. Pringles run music or
film-related on-pack offers across the
whole of Europe, and we handle all
of the legal work, the translations and
the country registrations, while those
who are on the O2 phone network will
be familiar with the Priority app and
associated prize draws. We handle the
winner management of hundreds of
happy winners a month. Our company’s
focus on detail and integrity has also
led us into overseeing live TV voting
One of the many
Kellogg’s on-pack
promotions that we
work on
Many
marketing
teams are
either ignorant
or apathetic
towards the
law and its
consequences
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