The Campaign for Promotional Independence
October sees the launch of a new campaign designed to help rebuild consumer confidence in the Call TV and Promotions industry. The “Campaign for Promotional Independence” is a new initiative from NOC member PromoVeritas, who for the last five years have been the leaders in the provision of verification and independent audit services to major promoters such as Coca-Cola, Unilever, McVities and Budweiser.
For its FMCG clients, the company acts as the independent judge for competitions, picks winners of text and win or paper entry prize draws and takes responsibility for the physical insertion of winning tokens for instant win promotions.
However since 2005, they have also been working with the more astute broadcasters and service providers to ensure the integrity of their call TV operations.
The Richard Ayre report commissioned by Ofcom, said of the recent problems with the TV industry : “the underlying theme is a systemic one – or rather, the absence of systems designed to require, ensure and audit compliance.”
So it is a welcome relief that there is now a new and simple offering that will seek to protect the interests of the industry and the consumer.
The PromoVeritas Campaign for Promotional Independence offers media clients the opportunity to have a full end to end audit of their current processes and systems conducted by a team who are familiar with the industry and regulations. The resulting report will show the status quo as well as offer guidance on improvements to systems or processes and the training of key staff.
A further key benefit is the ability to ensure continued compliance through regular contact and visits from PromoVeritas and the outsourcing of all winner selection, and if required, winner management, to the company. For broadcasters running interactive competitions or draws, PromoVeritas also offer a complete on going validation service that will pre-approve all puzzles and questions prior to broadcast as well as vetting the internal controls and checks of service providers, IVR platforms and other technical elements to ensure that every entry is counted and systems operate as they should.
The provision of Independent judging and supervision of prize draws is already a long established requirement of the ASA code and is a core part of new recommendations from ICSTIS for promotions run using premium rate phone or text services and may also soon become a licence requirement from Ofcom.
As Jeremy Stern, Managing Director of PromoVeritas says, “Consumers deserve better treatment. The correct implementation of promotions has long been an under rated area of the business, left to juniors and prone to abuse and malpractice. Now there is a simple way to ensure compliance and also build credibility. This in turn will help to restore participation levels to pre-2007 levels and avoid further promotional disasters.”
Successful promoters are issued with a PromoVeritas Certificate of Verification and are able to use the company logo in their material as a sign that all will be run correctly.
For more details on the Campaign for Promotional Independence or compliance matters in general contact Jeremy Stern, Managing Director of PromoVeritas Ltd, 020 7 060 0232 or 0779 626 8 424 jeremy@promoveritas.com
SPECIAL FOR NOC MEMBERS
Members of the NOC are entitled to a 10% reductionof the price of a PromoVeritas Compliance Review and 5% off ongoing services.
Contact the company at info@promoveritas.com or 020 7 060 0232, |