Online retail giant rapped by advertising watchdog

Manchester-based online retailer, The Hut Group, has had its knuckles rapped by the advertising watchdog over a competiton prize for a trip to Disneyland.

A prize draw, seen on October 28, 2018, on the website www.zavvi.co.uk, offered entrants the opportunity to win a weekend family trip to Disneyland Paris to mark ‘Mickey’s Birthday Celebrations’.

Participants just had to pay with Mastercard when making their purchase.

However, the complainant, who won the prize, said they were told they had responded too late, and challenged whether the promotion breached the advertising code.

In response, The Hut.com Ltd trading as Zavvi, said the terms of the promotion stated “The winners will be contacted by email.

“The winners need to confirm that they are eligible and able to accept within the 24 hour period from when the email is sent.

“If a winner does not contact us within this time period, we reserve the right to choose another winner at random from all other eligible entries.”

Zavvi said the notification email reiterated the need for the complainant to contact them within 24 hours, in accordance with the terms.

They said although the terms stated “we may, at our sole discretion, call the winner and send them reminder emails during or following this time period in order to get a response to the notification email”, they did not say they would definitely do so.

They said the complainant did not respond within 24 hours and, therefore, the prize was awarded to a replacement entrant at random.

But the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) upheld the complaint.

It said the CAP (Committee of Advertising Practice) Code stated that promoters must conduct their promotions equitably, promptly and efficiently and deal fairly and honourably with participants and potential participants.

It also stated that promoters must avoid causing unnecessary disappointment and should not give consumers justifiable grounds for complaint, and that promotions must communicate all applicable significant conditions or information where the omission of such conditions or information is likely to mislead.

The ASA said: “Because there could have been any number of reasons why participants were not able to check their emails over the period, we considered the requirement to respond within 24 hours was a significant condition that was likely to affect their understanding of the promotion and as such should have been prominently stated in the ad.

“No information about when consumers would be notified appeared in the ad or the terms and conditions, only that winners were selected in a random draw after the closing date.

“Without that information, neither participants nor potential participants were made aware of when they would have needed to have checked their emails for that notification.

“We considered that was also significant information likely to affect their understanding of the promotion and should also have been prominently stated in the ad.

Therefore, because Zavvi did not prominently state when winners would be notified, or that entrants were required to respond within 24 hours of that notification, we considered that participants had not been dealt with fairly and concluded that the ad breached the Code.”

The ASA has ruled that the promotion must not be run again in its current form.

“We told The Hut.com Ltd t/a Zavvi to ensure that future promotions that included terms that resulted in forfeiture of a prize if the winner failed to respond within a certain time period prominently informed participants and potential participants when winners would be notified and the time frame within which to respond.”

The firm was launched by Matthew Moulding and is set to embark on a major expansion.