ASA unravels Unilever ‘£5000’ Henry Holland dress competition
Unilever brand Magnum and fashion retailer Asos have come under fire from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) as a result of a social media competition prize being worth less than the £5000 value it was reputed to carry.
The Magnum UK Twitter feed stated "SHARE A SELFIE OF YOU & YOUR MAGNUM #MAGNUMREGENTST FOR THE CHANCE TO WIN A HENRY HOLLAND DRESS WORTH £5000".
Two of the promotion’s 25 competition winners said they were “were disappointed with the dress they received, challenged whether the prizes had been awarded as described in the marketing communications,” according to the ASA.
Magnum quoted a dress value given by Henry Holland when producing a limited edition line – rounding down the £5,600 figure formed using an in-house formula.
The ASA said: “We appreciated Magnum's assertion that the hours of hand-embellishing made the dresses more valuable than items solely produced by machine, and agreed that this was likely to be the case, but considered that the way in which the concrete value of £5000 had been reached was unsatisfactory.”
As a result, the ads were found to breach codes relating to misleading advertising, substantiation, sales promotions and administration.
The ads are not appear again in their current form and Unilever and Asos are to ensure that prizes in future promotions are “awarded as described and to avoid causing undue disappointment to participants”.