When is “independent” not “independent” when it comes to judging prize promotions?
If you are running any sort of prize activity in the UK, then you need to know Sections 8.24 to 8.26 of the CAP Code (the rule book of ASA who regulate the UK Marketing industry). Antonia Browne, Legal Executive at PromoVeritas, takes a closer look.
A lot of time and effort goes into the running of any type of promotion but most of it is spent at the front end, on the idea and the creative. However, the back end is where most of the problems tend to occur – although they can be easily sorted with a little bit of care and knowledge.
For example if you are planning a competition, a game of skill or judgement, then clause 8.26 of the CAP Code is for you:
8.26 In competitions, if the selection of a winning entry is open to subjective interpretation, an independent judge, or a panel that includes one independent member must be appointed. In either case, the judge or panel member must be demonstrably independent, especially from the competition’s promoters and intermediaries. Those appointed to act as judges should be competent to judge the competition and their full names must be made available on request.
The aim of this rule is to ensure that promoters have evidence that they ran their competition fairly and winners were based on the stated judging criteria, in other words that it was not fixed. If you are happy to outsource your winner selection to a specialist, then conforming to these requirements should not be any trouble. Running it internally is likely to cause trouble and embarrassment.
Who can be my “independent” judge?
Theoretically, a promoter could use the proverbial “man in the street” to oversee a prize draw, but competitions are a little more complicated because they generally require a judge who is both independent and competent to judge the entries. So, if entrants are required to write a recipe, promoters need to involve a chef (but not their own inhouse chef, as he is not independent), if entrants need to submit a holiday snap, then someone with a creative background would make a good judge. In all cases that judge, or if there is a panel, at least one judge must be independent – and this excludes the promoter’s agencies, printers, PR company, digital supplier and so on who are not deemed sufficiently independent to count.
That is why PromoVeritas exists, to act as the independent promotional verifier – judging competitions or picking winners of prize draws. Fair and compliantly. We can either judge all the entries and supply you with the winners list, or we can create a shortlist of say the top 50, and then chair a judging session with the promoter and others to select the final winners. It is a more skillful task than you might imagine.
So before you go ahead and finalise your next competition, do have a chat to the experts at PromoVeritas and see what we can do to help. After all you only have your reputation to protect!
Read the full article on the PromoVeritas website here.
So that entrants can have total confidence in the integrity of your next prize promotions, talk to the experts. If you have any questions, we would love to hear from you, so please contact us.
