Rio Ferdinand Twitter promotion cleared
A marketing campaign that gave fans the chance to win football match tickets on Rio Ferdinand’s Twitter profile has been cleared despite concerns that it was misleading.
The tweets were posted from the defender’s official Twitter account in January and gave details on how to win tickets to see Manchester United team’s home match against Stoke later that month.
All fans who had downloaded the Rio Ferdinand App before the competition’s closing date were entered into a prize draw.
A complainant questioned whether the details of the promotion, such as how to enter and how the winner would be randomly selected, were made clear to followers through the tweets.
New Era Global Sports Management, the company that created the campaign, said that “they had gone to a great deal of effort to ensure that they did not mislead in any way the users of the app or the associated messaging.”
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) concluded that the “significant terms” were explained in tweets from the footballer.
It said that it was satisfied that the prize draw had been properly administered and was not misleading.
The ruling is only the second by the ASA on a Twitter campaign following its verdict on a campaign from Mars last month. The promotion, which also featured Rio Ferdinand alongside Katie Price escaped censure after the industry watchdog concluded that the tweets were clearly spoof posts.
