Twitter character limit causes Cook to fall foul of advertising rules

A Thomas Cook social media competition has been banned after it was found to have breached six rules of advertising.

The agency invited social media users to enter a competition for a £5,000 gift card by posting a photo or a video of themselves mimicking a flamingo or giraffe strut, as seen in Thomas Cook ads, but the link to the terms and conditions contained in the tweet didn’t work and a user complained they were unable to submit their entry because they had been given the wrong closing date.

The complainant challenged whether the advertised promotion had dealt fairly and honourably with participants.

In its defence, Thomas Cook admitted there were parts of the delivery of the promotion that did not run smoothly, which resulted in the complainant being unable to enter the prize draw.

The promotion was run across Twitter and one other social media platform with different closing dates for entries. They said that due to Twitter’s 140-character limit, there was insufficient space to explain the different closing dates, so they had relied on the link in the Tweet to the full T&Cs, which they didn’t realise wasn’t working.

When the complainant contacted Thomas Cook’s customer care team, he was mistakenly given the wrong closing date for the competition.

Thomas Cook stated that both entry routes were covered by the same T&Cs, which they believed clearly defined the rules along with the respective closing dates.

Thomas Cook claimed that the prize draw was operated in good faith and that they had carefully considered and evaluated ‘the most effective and fair way to run the promotion, working within the parameters of the different social media platforms’.

In its ruling, the Advertising Standards Authority, welcomed an assurance Thomas Cook had provided that their future promotions would include an operational link to the full T&Cs.

"We understood that Thomas Cook had unpinned the promotional tweet on the closing date. However, we considered that because it was still possible for people to see it and given no closing date was shown in the tweet, they were likely to assume that the prize draw was still open via the Twitter entry route and would proceed to make their video before realising that they would not be able to submit it," it said.

The ASA also said that the Tweet should have made it clear there were two entry routes available with different closing dates. It pointed out this could have been included in some graphical content, which would have saved Thomas Cook some characters.

"Therefore, because the tweet did not include a closing date for submission of entries made via Twitter, did not have an operational link to the full T&Cs or make sufficiently clear that two closing dates applied to the prize promotion which depended on the method of entry chosen, we considered that the advertised promotion had not been dealt fairly and honourably with participants and concluded it breached the CAP Code."

It said the promotion breached rules~ 8.1 , 8.2 and 8.14 ~(promotional marketing), 8.17, 8.17.4.a (significant conditions for promotions) and 8.28 (prize promotions).

"The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Thomas Cook that their future prize promotions must include an operational link to the full T&Cs, the closing date for submitted entries and make sufficiently clear whether the closing date varied according to the method of entry chosen," added the ASA.