March 9, 2023
On March 8, 2023, Toronto’s CityNews reported that some entrants into Tim Hortons (Tim’s) iconic Canadian Roll Up To Win contest were notified via Tim’s app that they had won a $10,000 American Express pre-paid card, when the notification was the result of a technical error (see: Roll Up To Win players upset after $10K AMEX card win was result of technical error).
According to CityNews’ reporting, some contest entrants were notified via Tim’s app that they had won a $10,000 AMEX card stating “WINNER!*” that later disappeared from the app. The prize notification (which some entrants took screenshots of) was qualified by a disclaimer under the headline announcement stating “*to be verified”.
Tim’s digital support team later reportedly contacted entrants that were incorrectly notified that they had won a prize informing them that a technical error caused the issue for a “small subset of Roll Up To Win players”.
In the past, this long-running national Canadian promotional contest operated by customers physically rolling up the rim of paper coffee cups in Tim’s stores. In recent years, Tim’s migrated its annual contest to an e-platform.
According to some entrants, they were offered a $50 Tim’s gift card instead of the $10,000 AMEX card they were first notified that they had won.
The technical issues that arose in this contest are an excellent example of the importance of having good contest rules (i.e., both short or “mini” rules and long contest rules) in place for a promotion in the event of a technical failure or other issue that affects the intended operation of the contest.
In this regard, Canadian contest rules commonly include rules that stipulate that the sponsor is not responsible for a wide range of technical issues that may arise during the promotion (including “technical failures of any kind”) and a right for the sponsor to terminate or amend the contest for any reason, including if the contest is not capable of running as planned.
Good contest rules protect sponsors from potential regulatory complaints (e.g., Competition Bureau complaints) and litigation in the event that some entrants claim that a sponsor did not fulfill the terms of the contest. In this respect, in Canada contest rules have been held to be contracts between entrants entering the contest (i.e., agreement by performance) and the sponsor fulfilling the terms of the contract (i.e., as set out in the contest rules).
In many cases, however, the greater concern for contest sponsors when technical issues arise (e.g., false winner notifications, other issues relating to contest draws or prize substitutions) is the potential negative PR that, as in this case, can arise when entrants feel that the sponsor has misled consumers that can negatively impact the brand. In this respect, some sponsors elect to award an entrant that has not technically won the contest the prize in any event to minimize potential negative PR risk.
In this case, there is an additional potential misleading advertising issue in that some entrants were reportedly notified that they were a “WINNER!*”. While these notifications included a disclaimer stating “to be verified”, there is nonetheless a risk in making literally false headline marketing related claims to consumers where there is an attempt to modify or qualify a headline claim that may be literally false.
The Competition Bureau has taken the enforcement position in the past that a disclaimer cannot cure an otherwise literally false headline marketing claim. For more information on disclaimers under Canadian advertising law, see: Disclaimers and General Impression Test.
For more information about Canadian contest laws, see: Contests, Contests and CASL, Contest FAQs and Contests and Social Media.
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CONTEST RULES/PRECEDENTS
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We offer many types of Canadian contest/sweepstakes law precedents and forms (i.e., Canadian contest/sweepstakes law precedents to run common types of contests in Canada). These include legal precedents for random draw contests (i.e., where winners are chosen by random draw), skill contests (e.g., essay, photo or other types of contests where entrants submit content that is judged to enter the contest or for additional entries), trip contests and more.
Also available are individual Canadian contest/sweepstakes precedents, including short rules (“mini-rules”), long rules, winner releases and a Canadian contest law checklist.
For more information or to order see: Canadian Contest Law Forms/Precedents.
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Our experience includes advising clients in Toronto, Canada and the United States on the application of Canadian competition and regulatory laws and we have worked on hundreds of domestic and cross-border competition, advertising and marketing, promotional contest (sweepstakes), conspiracy (cartel), abuse of dominance, compliance, refusal to deal and pricing and distribution matters. For more information about our competition and advertising law services see: competition law services.
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Templates/precedents and checklists to run promotional contests in Canada
Templates/precedents and checklists to comply with Canadian anti-spam law (CASL)
