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Entertainment Marketing: Movies, TV, Music and Gaming ASA Sony

Sony PS4 and Game limited edition console competition unfair, says ASA

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By John McCarthy, Opinion Editor

May 13, 2015 | 2 min read

A Sony PlayStation competition, run in conjunction with Game, offering 100 entrants the chance to purchase a limited edition console has been found to breach ASA fairness rules.

The social media campaign, once a day described a character from PlayStation 's back catalogue. The competition tasked users with entering the portal and clicking the described characters to enter a purchase portal for the console at Game.com.

Purportedly, the promotion was supposed to be available to the first 100 people who correctly answered the question. However, despite the Sony’s best intentions the purchase portal was shareable, meaning some consumers could access the promotion without participating in the challenge.

The ASA ruling read: “Although processes had been put in place to try to prevent consumers from purchasing more than one console, at least five consumers had been able to do so, against the promotion's terms and conditions.

“We also understood that a link to the opportunity to purchase the console could be shared, which meant that neither Sony nor Game could tell whether consumers had accessed the link after having solved the clue, or having been sent the link. We considered that meant entrants who had attempted to enter by solving the clue were likely to have been disadvantaged and therefore unnecessarily disappointed.”

As a result the promotion breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 8.1 and 8.2 (Sales promotions), and 8.14 (Administration).

Sony Computer Entertainment UK and Game Retail have been told that future promotions will have to be administered fairly.

Entertainment Marketing: Movies, TV, Music and Gaming ASA Sony

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