The fourth edition of DLA Piper’s popular Prize Promotions Around the World online guide is now available.  The guide has been fully updated and also includes four new jurisdictions, to bring the total coverage to 39 jurisdictions.

Prize promotions (including promotional sweepstakes and skill competitions) remain a hugely popular marketing tool used globally by organisations to engage with customers. The internet and social media platforms make this an attractive, cost-efficient means of reaching a large, multi-jurisdictional customer base; but it is not without its legal challenges.

This guide is designed to equip DLA Piper’s clients with a useful tool to assist with the management of the early development stages of a promotion and to bring attention to potentially problematic issues as early in the creation process as possible.  Issues covered include legal requirements for sweepstakes and skills competitions, regulation of judges and prizes, formal requirements such as registration and translations, and penalties for non-compliance.

New features and trends

In response to client demand, this new edition of the Guide has been expanded to cover 39 jurisdictions which are among the most significant for global businesses. The new jurisdictions are Denmark, Hungary, Nigeria, and Turkey.

The guide’s interactive map has also been updated, and it confirms that the extent of regulation and sanctions in this area is on the rise, with the most noticeable change being brought about by the introduction of GDPR across the European Union. GDPR extends obligations around handling promotion entrants’ personal data (e.g. for winner publicity, use of promotions to generate marketing leads and use of UGC entries containing personal data), and introduces the possibility of huge fines for breaches of those obligations.

Approach to International Prize Promotions

Marketing and legal teams of international brands are frequently tasked with rolling out cross-jurisdictional promotions in short timescales, however, the variety of legal requirements across jurisdictions can make this a complex and risky endeavor.

This guide does not replace legal advice but can help to identify key issues early on in the process. A proportionate approach which takes account of the differing legal requirements, budgets, potential exposure, and co-ordinates input from the affected jurisdictions must be adopted. The DLA Piper global advertising and marketing team is uniquely well-placed to handle complex, local and multi-jurisdictional compliance projects, including prize promotions.