Lack of significant terms on promotional materials
On-pack promotions on shelves but not live
Seeing potential participants leave before making a successful entry or just generally low participation rates is an expected occurrence in many brand promotions.
The reason for this is likely in part due to user pain points that are very common in the brand promotions space. Shoppers and consumers always take precedence in any kind of shopper activation or shopper marketing efforts. This is why these common mistakes and user pain points encountered in prize promotions should be minimised, if not, completely solved to ensure a seamless promotional journey for shoppers.
When users encounter several issues in the promotional process and any shopper activation, they’ll feel increasingly frustrated and end up disconnecting from the promotion altogether. Leaving audiences with an overall poor impression that does not reflect the wider brand. This is why understanding ‘where’ users are leaving the promotion and ‘why’ is essential to retaining entrants and participants. Not only improving engagement and participation rates in a brand promotion but also as a quality assurance measure; maintaining a set standard and impression of a brand’s identity.
Outside of user pain points, a common issue for brands is compliance with the CAP Codes and rulings with the ASA.
The CAP codes regarding promotions focus on making sure participants have a fair and reasonable experience. Having a strong understanding of CAP Code 8 will greatly benefit brands looking to run a successful promotion.
If your brand is looking to run a promotion, PromoNow has published other articles which detail how to run a promotion and the CAP regulations which directly impact shopper promotions - including both off and on-pack promotions. This is a great place to start a brand’s promotional journey or to refresh existing knowledge on running prize promotions.
The most general definition provided by the CAP and ASA on ‘significant terms & conditions’ is any conditions that may cause consumers to be misled if omitted.
Weighing T&Cs - What's Considered Significant Terms & Conditions? | PromoNow
Including significant terms and conditions in any promotional material is required by the ASA and is one of, if not the most common CAP Code that is broken and upheld by the ASA.
This regulation takes into consideration the factors and conditions of entering a promotion and weighs if those terms are significant enough to alter or change the decision of a possible participant. For promotions, this is written as short terms & conditions, usually small text included on a promotional pack or with promotional materials such as ‘18 and over. UK only. Purchase necessary’ etc…
The open and closing dates of the promotion are also considered significant terms since they will greatly impact whether or not a consumer will enter the promotion in the first place.
If a shopper sees an on-pack promotion without a clear live date, they may presume that the promotion is still live since it’s still on shop shelves. Then, they may buy the product and go to the promotional microsite, only to find out that the promotion is no longer live. Knowing that the promotion was no longer live may have impacted their purchasing decision - they may not have bought the product otherwise. For that reason, omitting that term was deceptive and misleading which would mean the ASA would likely uphold a critical ruling against that promotion.
For a more exhaustive list of defining and writing significant terms & conditions, refer to this article on significant terms & conditions.
This is an incredibly frequent issue in the shopper activations and prize promotions space. Brands should take care that all promotional materials that directly reference or advertise the promotion, digital and social media included, should have the significant terms listed.
The ASA is particularly rigorous with this CAP code when it comes to digital promotional materials since most of the time, brands are not limited by space to include them.
A recent ruling upheld against Beer52, for their brand, Wine52 was a dispute over the fair administration of the promotion due to the lack of clear terms & conditions in the initial email.
The promotion was administered through email and offered entrants a free case if they referred a friend to their subscription box at a discounted price. However, the email did not clearly state or clarify that the referred customer would have to stay and pay for a full-price box to be eligible for the promised ‘free case’. This was deemed misleading by the ASA and a ruling was upheld against them.
Their statement was as follows:
Nevertheless, ads still needed to include all significant conditions related to the offer, including how to participate and any restrictions, where the omission of such conditions was likely to mislead, unless they were significantly limited by time and space. We considered that ads (a) and (b), which were emails and therefore not limited in space in the way ads in some other media might be, were not significantly limited by time and space to justify the omission of significant conditions.
ASA Ruling on Beer52 Ltd | ASA.org.uk
Adding too many stages and steps between finding the promotions and entering them will make many potential participants disconnect from the promotion or feel frustrated and leave a poor impression of the brand.
Ideally, the entry process should be simple and easy with minimal page changes.
There should only be a page for an age gate; a page for personal details, including any proof of purchase; followed by any animation or gamification elements; then lastly, the win/lose page.
Many brands decide to put out the promotional-packing on shelves before the live date for various reasons. However, the biggest issue with this decision is that potential participants that were willing to enter, can’t.
Without being able to immediately do so, shoppers may forget about the promotion and throw away the pack which may contain proof of purchase information like URNs (unique reference numbers) or other promotional information that’s important, leading to lower participation rates altogether.
By the time the live date rolls around, there’s a chance that audiences have forgotten about it or are no longer interested in entering anymore. The shopper, FMCG, and CPG space is incredibly fast-moving, if a brand captures the attention of a shopper, there needs to be something to follow through from that and continue to engage the shopper.
If your promotion is not yet live, implement an email notification system. Encourage shoppers to sign up with an email address to be notified when the promotion goes live. If you have an always-on microsite, this could be a good way to continually engage audiences why notifying them of any upcoming and live brand promotions.
Likewise, the opposite also applies. If there’s still a promotional pack in-store but the promotion has since ended, even with the date on-pack, shoppers may still feel disappointed and even misled.
The digital aspects of the promotion are a huge consideration for prize promotions and shopper activations. When a website, microsite, or page that a shopper is directed to does not work as intended, shoppers will likely leave the promotion without completing an entry due to user frustration or, they are physically unable to make an entry even if they have the intention or want to.
A promotional website or page should always be built responsively with a mobile-first mindset due to the high demographic of mobile users that are participants in brand and prize promotions.
Without considering different device experiences that participants may have, brands may be isolating more than half of their potential entrants which leads to poor participation rates.
Again, even if a shopper wants to enter the promotion, they may not physically be able to due to technical difficulties or have a hard time entering the promotion which doesn’t leave a good impression on these users - they may even start to doubt the legitimacy of the promotion and your brand, becoming distrustful.
To reach and appeal to more shoppers and consumers, brands will often advertise the size of their prize pool on the packaging or promotional material. While this is perfectly fine, the issue is when a brand emphasises the size of the prize pool but then only gives away, say, ⅓ of the total prizes. It's interpreted by shoppers and consumers as deceiving and misleading.
Notable consumer voice in the promotional space and founder of Superlucky.me, Di Coke, often shares this concern and issue with her comper audience.
In many cases the small amount of information on the packaging doesn’t fully explain the mechanics of the promotion. Several types of instant win promotion have been ruled as misleading by the Advertising Standards Authority, for exaggerating prize funds and not making it clear to the consumer how small the chance of winning is.
Which instant win formats have the worst chance of winning? | Di Coke
Brands ideally should be giving away as many prizes as they can from their prize pool in the spirit of the promotion.
To do so, in an instant win promotion, for example, use an open winning moment as opposed to a closed one. This means a prize is assigned to a particular moment, and until someone makes an entry and wins said prize, the winning moment will not close.
Alternatively, some brands use a roll-over method. This is when a prize from one winning moment is rolled over to the next if the prize has not been claimed in its initial winning moment. This means within one winning moment, there could be multiple winners. It gives the brand the best chance of awarding every prize that is advertised in the prize promotion.
On the other hand, a closed winning moment - otherwise referred to as a ‘precise winning moment’ opens the winnable moment, usually for a very brief time. This means that no prize is guaranteed to be won nor is it rolled over. Therefore, all the prizes are not guaranteed to be won or awarded and will only be awarded if an entry is made precisely within the allotted period
There are several other mechanisms to distribute prizes that have poor odds of winning for participants and often result in several prizes not being awarded. For example, in an algorithmic instant win, every prize will be given away only if every single promotional pack has an accompanying entry. So in a ‘pack universe’ there may be 2,500 promotional packs and 100 prizes - not every shopper who buys a promotional pack will enter the promotion. It is highly unlikely that every single promotional pack will receive an accompanying entry which means, that if 10% of shoppers make an entry, only 10% of the prizes will be awarded.
Algorithmic instant wins have become such an issue, that now, the ASA tends to uphold rulings when an algorithmic mechanic is used.
The ASA has ruled that the terms that relate to the awarding of prizes are likely to significantly influence a consumer’s understanding and decision to participate in a promotion. As such, this information should be included on the promotional pack and any initial marketing communications. Including this information only in the full terms and conditions, won’t be sufficient.
Using algorithms to select winners: two rulings and three key considerations | CAP News
There’s also the seeded instant win mechanic. Which involves a winning ‘token’ like a ticket, different packaging, or something similar that also includes instructions on how to claim the prize. The winning product is placed among regular ones and often has a poor win rate.
Whilst immensely popular with the general public due to the exciting format, the more popular the product and promotion gets, the lower the odds of winning becomes.
Sometimes, to increase the odds of winning, the winning product will be placed on shop shelves. This is called ‘Controlled Product Placement’.
The most effective way to make sure your promotion is run effectively is to work with a promotional agency with a proven track record of compliance and user-first promotions or use an end-to-end platform with considerations for user pain points built in.
Otherwise, brands should take care and carefully follow the regulations for brand promotions in the CAP Codes (refer to section 8 in the codes) to run a successful and compliant prize promotion.
Moreover, to make the process as seamless as possible, brands should simplify instead of complicating the process whilst using methods that afford participants the chance to make an entry in a fair, truthful, and decent way.
Communicate clearly and explicitly the significant considerations and terms in promotional materials. A brand can also, following the promotional period, disclose the winners for extra transparency.
To find out how your brand can build better brand promotions and create successful shopper activations with an end-to-end platform. Speak to one of our experts at no cost. Consider using the PromoNow platform. Speak with a platform consultant at +44 (0)20 380 555 38 or email [email protected] to learn more.
PromoNow is a managed end-to-end cloud platform empowering brand owners with rapid, scalable and secure solutions for any promotional activation.
