Making sure your sales promotion is fair, legal and secure

Playing fair – Profiling Enable (Marketing & Promotions) Ltd: the firm that ensures promotions, and those who enter them, play by the book. 

“No-one ever wins these competitions, you know.”

“The prizes don’t even make it into the marketplace!”

“I bet the people on the factory line walk off with most of the winning tickets.”

You may have heard or even thought something along these lines before, especially in light of high profile competition fixing at ITV, GMTV and Blue Peter.  However, there are people out there working diligently to change this perception by making promotions fair, legal and secure.  Enable (Marketing & Promotions) Ltd is one such company, and, with over 15 years’ experience in the industry, there are few scams that would surprise the Bristol-based team.  

“’Just give the prize to the most attractive woman’ is not something I expected to have an agency instruct me to do in order to allocate a prize that was seen as difficult to seed into the marketplace,” recounts Neil Barnes, managing director of Enable. “I refused, of course, and we put the prize into the marketplace in a fair and random manner.” 

Then there was the time when Enable was advised that a claimant had found a defaced note in an in-pack promotion.  Not to mention an incident where a promotion’s prize was claimed very early, which automatically highlighted concerns. Further investigations revealed that the ‘winning’ ticket had actually been dropped on the studio floor after a photography shoot of the promotional material.  Fortunately, in both cases Enable had the documentation in place to prove both claims as false and avoid the potential PR disaster that could have ensued. 

Coupon mis- and over-redemption is particularly high profile at the moment and the Institute of Sales Promotions (ISP) has recently published a new set of guidelines that, if adhered to, will go some way to ensuring that this type of fraud is kept under control, if not eliminated entirely.¹  Promoters who distribute their coupons via the Internet are probably the most at risk of having these replicated and distributed electronically.²

Coupons printed from the Internet form only part of the new challenges and opportunities created by the web. “The online entry has had a big impact on the way that sales promotions are designed and operated,” says Barnes, “but it has also produced a new breed of fraudster.”

Barnes warns that promoters using the internet as part of their entry mechanic could be particularly vulnerable to fraudsters making multiple entries and taking an unfair advantage over genuine competition entrants.  “Those who habitually enter promotions might exploit loopholes in text messaging and email that do not exist in postal or more traditional entry means. 

"It is in the interest of brands to ensure that winners of consumer promotions are genuinely existing or potential customers and not just gold-diggers or professional compers who have no interest in brand loyalty.  Some months ago a company did not heed our repeated warnings that an individual was entering the competition repeatedly, but with slightly different email addresses. Unfortunately this individual ended up walking away with several of the major prizes;  great for that person, but not so good for the honest entrants, or indeed for the brand."

Enable (Marketing & Promotions) Ltd, based near Bristol, advises and assists promoters on combating fraud and cheating. It ensures the fair and legally compliant running of local, national and international promotions of all sizes by auditing all procedures, overseeing print and production, fair and random allocation of prizes,  independent judging of competitions and the provision of unique codes.  So if you want your next competition to 'play by the rules', please call Enable (Marketing & Promotions) Ltd on 01934 853770 or email: info@enablemp.com.

___________________________________________________________________________________

1. ‘Electronic Couponing Guidelines’, available on the ISP website: www.isp.org.uk

2. Mosaic Marketing & Promotions has some excellent solutions for delivering secure online promotional offers. Contact them through their website www.mosaicmarketing.co.uk or on +44 (0)1865) 877711.