A prize promotion, on Pepsi packaging and fronted by Didier Drogba, offered the chance to win £500 every hour. Text included “FOR A CHANCE TO WIN, ENTER THE LAST 4 DIGITS OF YOUR BARCODE AT WWW.PEPSI.CO.UK OR TEXT 62948”.
The ASA ruled that PepsiCo’s terms banning bulk entry submissions were not sufficiently clear to allow disqualification of a family who had used a large number of slightly varying email addresses to enter the promotion over 11,000 times, with some draws being entered over 500 times an hour.
The ASA agreed that generating multiple email addresses in this way was “not within the spirit of the promotion,” but a reference in the T&Cs to “bulk” entries was likely to be interpreted as a reference to entries generated automatically. PepsiCo had not been able to show that the complainant’s entries were generated by any means other than individuals using multiple email addresses.
This and other ASA decisions all emphasise the need for anti-abuse terms to be carefully drafted. The fact that someone is abusing a promotion, to the evident disadvantage of other participants, is not enough in itself to disqualify that person.