The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), has ruled that a Cadbury promotion which offered consumers the chance to design their own chocolate bar, has breached ad codes written by the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP).
The promotion which featured in July last year stated that all valid entries would be judged by “PromoVeritas”, and reviewed by an “expert panel of judges”.
However, the contestants who complained requested the full names of the judges on the panel. When Cadbury denied them the information, these contestants challenged whether the promotion had breached CAP codes.
The Mondelez UK owned confectionary company later told the ASA that it could not “obtain consent” to share the internal judges’ names because of “staff absence”.
Cadbury claimed that although it could not provide them with this information, it had imparted details of PromoVeritas to the complainants.
It also told them the job titles of the internal judges to prove that they were qualified and that the promotion “complied with data protection legislation”.
“They believed that providing the judges’ names would not have provided any additional clarity as to their independence,” the ASA said.
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Although the self-regulatory authority recognised the company’s attempt to impart as many details as they could, the self-regulatory organisation ruled that the promotion had breached CAP code.
“The full names of those appointed to judge the competition should be made available on request,” the ASA added.
“We told Mondelez UK Ltd that they must be able to provide the full names of the judges on request in similar competitions in future.”
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