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Cybher – presentation overview

By Spark and Fuse on May 13, 2012

CYBHER SPEAKER BADGE

Here’s an overview of what we covered at Cybher 2012 for anyone that missed it, and for those of you who’d like to see the points again.

We are not electricians

All UK Marketing Communications must be legal, decent, honest and truthful. A prize promotion is a marketing communication.

Name your prize promotion correctly – a competition requires an element of skill while a prize draw/giveaway is a game of chance and winners are chosen randomly.

Under the Gambling Act 2005 it is illegal to charge people an inflated price to enter a prize draw or to pay an entry fee. It is within the law to charge people to enter a competition as long as there is a genuine element of skill. ‘Where do Florida Oranges come from?’ – is an example of a competition question for which there is no element of skill.

There is a code for UK Marketing Communications written by the Committee of Advertising Practice and applied by The Advertising Standard Authority – it’s called The UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing and is known as the Cap code. It’s recognised by the courts, OFT and Government and the established means of consumer protection in non-broadcast media. All prize promotions must adhere to the code.

The ASA’s digital remit covers non-paid for space. This includes Facebook, Twitter, websites and blogs. Anyone can complain to the ASA about a prize promotion that is not conducted properly.

This is a real example of a response to a compliant made to the ASA. It will remain on the ASA’s website forever ‘Bentleys of Blackpool stated they had withdrawn the competition because the first winners had left the guest house unimpressed and they did not wish to offer prizes to such people and therefore cancelled the competition’

You can download a copy of the code for free from www.cap.org.uk

Facebook also has its own set of regulations for how prize promotions can be run. These are in addition to the CAP code. You can find them here www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php

It is not acceptable to like something on a wall as a means to entering a prize draw on Facebook.

Rafflecopter facilitates prize draw – but that is all. It is a US application.

Think about who can and can’t enter your prize promotion. Do you really want to send a prize to Hawaii?

Include a closing date and time. And don’t change it once the promotion is live.

State how many prizes you are giving away and make it clear what is, or isn’t included.

Creative competitions require judging criteria. Stating the winner will be the ‘best’ entry is not enough information for anyone to understand what the judges will be looking for.

Pick winners appropriately – draws should be conducted randomly by a person who is independent to you and the results verified. Competitions should be judged appropriately by an independent person with related experience in the subject of the competition.

A real example of how prize draws should not be conducted: ‘I was given some tickets to LEGOLAND. I kept three for myself then picked winners within a reasonable distance from my office so they could come and collect their prize tickets’.

Post promotion, don’t give away entrants details or contact them for any reason other than prize fulfilment, unless you have their permission to do so. Check to see if you should register with the Information Commissioners Office to store entrants data www.ico.gov.uk

We love prize promotions and just want everyone to understand how to conduct them well.

For great inspiration on how to run fun comps and prize draws from your blog, take a look at our Cybher session host Di Coke’s blog.

Thank you.

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