Competitions & Prize Draws

Rule 28 of the BCAP Code Rule applies. It states that: Competitions should be conducted fairly, prizes should be described accurately and rules should be clear and made known.

In Great Britain prize draws requiring customers to buy a product may be advertised as long as the price of the products has not been inflated, e.g. in order to pay for the running of the competition. A free entry route (or the tag “no purchase necessary”) is no longer required.

In Northern Ireland however the rules differ and promoters may need to obtain legal advice.

Draws where nothing is purchased beyond the entry of the competition, such as in the case of a prize draw ticket, are governed by the rules applicable to lotteries in section 18 of the BCAP Code.

Prize draws which require the collection of tokens (i.e. consumers must buy more than one of the products advertised) must make this clear in the advertising. A general rule of thumb is that if more than ten tokens are needed, the number of tokens should be stated.

Promotions that involve a charge to enter and an element of chance need to offer customers a free-entry route and this should be clearly promoted on the advertiser’s website, given the same prominence as the paid route, and the existence of the free-entry route should be referenced in the ad copy.