To say that lawyers like official rules is pretty obvious.  I wouldn’t say that promotion sponsors necessarily like official rules but they like what they can do, namely put a protective sheath between themselves and possible legal challenges in a given promotion.  On one side you have lawyers and regulators; on the other side you have consumers.  Both can bring legal misery if the rules aren’t prepared correctly.  Don’t try and fake it and work with a partner who has sufficient knowledge of how to put all the pieces together.

So what are the individual pieces that make up a complete set of sweepstakes rules?  It is not difficult to find a checklist to work from.  They appear to be simple and are meant to answer a few key questions. What’s the name of the promotion, who is the sponsor, who can enter, when does it start, what do I win, to name a few.  But even these simple items in untrained hands can get you into trouble.  For example you can bet that Coca-Cola will be running a promotion to award a trip to the upcoming NCAA March Madness tournament.   Can you?  If you use March Madness in the name of the promotion to sell anything or even include it in the description of a prize, you’ve just violated a trademark.  This “borrowed” interest from widely recognizable entertainment or sports properties comes at a steep price.  These properties are protective of their rights and incorrectly using these terms can cost you big.  By the way referring to March Madness in a post such as this is OK because we are not directly promoting any product or service.

Regulators and lawyers at least do their work professionally and out of the public eye.  With consumers it gets public fast.   An area that receives a lot of consumer scrutiny is around entries.  Entries, as in who, where, when, and how can I enter?  If it is an online promotion, can I also use my smartphone or tablet, can I enter from each of them, can I do it once an hour, once a day, every week?   This must be carefully thought through and then accurately described in the rules.

The goodness associated with sweepstakes promotions can be destroyed in minutes when a consumer spots an issue and cries foul in social media. Facebook, Twitter and other social sites are littered with angry consumers claiming misinformation or inaccurate descriptions of how promotions work.  It is important to be able to point to a professionally prepared set of official rules when you are trying to address dissatisfaction.  Correctly prepared rules provide documentation that is legally enforceable.

In truth, an accurate and thorough set of official rules cannot protect against the possibility of a legal claim but they can protect against probability.  They can be the difference between being able to sleep at night or tossing and turning over something you may have overlooked.  Work with a knowledgeable resource to protect against probability and rest easy, there are other things to worry about.  Will the earth get hit with another meteor?  Possibly yes, but probably no, at least not in the near term.   Let’s also hope that the star gazers aren’t faking it when they tell us the earth’s atmosphere will protect us.