‘Asha’s breached promotion code’

LONDON: Britain’s advertising watchdog has rapped Asha’s, a restaurant chain promoted by Indian singing legend Asha Bhosle, for selecting winners of a competition not by random chance but selectively by an individual member of its staff.

The chain has several restaurants in the Gulf countries and two outlets in Birmingham and Manchester. The fare offered reflects the favourite cuisine and preferences of Bhosle, known for her passion for cooking.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld a complaint lodged by an unnamed individual who understood that the prizes had been awarded to the promoter’s friends, and challenged whether awards were in accordance with laws of chance.

Asha’s Restaurants International Ltd informed ASA that the winners of the competition announced on its Facebook page on July 13 were randomly selected by the sales and market- ing manager from people who liked the restaurant’s page.

The competition offered five pairs of weekend tickets for a local food festival to those who liked and shared the restaurant’s post and page. The winners were to be announced on July 14.

The ASA ruled this week that the advertising code was breached on two counts by the way the winners were selected.

It said: “We noted that Asha’s said the winners... had been selected at random by the sales and marketing manager. However, we had not seen evidence to demonstrate that the winners had been selected under the supervision of an independent person or that Asha’s had used a verifiably random computer process to select the winner”.

“In the absence of such evidence, we considered that Asha’s had not demonstrated that the prize had been awarded in accordance with the laws of chance or that participants had been dealt with fairly. We therefore concluded that the promotion breached the Code”.