MTN has responded to the Advertising Standards Authority of SA's (ASASA's) ruling on its 15-year anniversary SMS competition, saying it ran the competition “in good faith”.
The ruling, released this week, called MTN's controversial SMS competition a vehicle for profit-making. Six customers took the matter to the authority after the competition closed in July, saying that MTN had misled them on the cost.
“MTN takes note of the ruling by the ASASA on the 15-year SMS competition. As previously and publically stated, we would like to reassure our customers that MTN ran this competition in good faith and in terms of the required legislation,” says MTN SA's GM for legal and regulatory affairs, Graham de Vries.
The company says it is still going over the ruling and will follow internal “processes” once that is done.
The competition was a quiz-based system where entrants answered trivia via SMS to gain points, with SMSes costing R7.50 each. The more points accumulated, the more likely the entrant was to win a prize.
The complaint laid by the customers explained that, while the competition SMS cost R7.50, there was no indication that an additional R7.50 would be charged for every SMS thereafter. While no sentence has yet been passed by the authority, the complaint was upheld.
The hammer
The ASASA essentially says the competition was an advertising campaign and should have been handled by an agency. MTN's defence to the authority explained it was not advertising, but rather a competition that should have been governed by lotteries law.
“This adds to the view that this was no more to celebrate 15 years of MTN's existence than to generate a huge income by luring subscribers and other people into entering a lottery-type competition,” explained the ruling.
The authority also said no reasonable viewer or entrant to the competition could be expected to read the full terms and conditions of the competition. The terms were made available for customers at various points, including the company Web site and a mobile site, which was linked to the competition SMSes.
At the time, the competition's terms and conditions stated: “The promoter is not responsible for entrants overspending by sending too many SMS entries.”
MTN says it will provide more information at a later stage. “We will be able to comment further once this process has run its course,” says De Vries.
Related stories:
MTN haunted by competition woes
MTN reviews competition
MTN cans SMS competition
Share
