The Nameless Site

No Purchase Necessary

I've always wondered why contests always say "No Purchase Necessary" except you need to buy a product to get the information to enter the contest.

This especially came up when I saw the KraftDinner box recently where they had a crayola giveaway. You get a Unique code you have to enter on the YTV website to win. I was so confused as to how you could enter the contest without purchasing kraft dinner right? right?

Yea, so I kept reading, turns out you can write a letter/make a picture and send it to them, and they'll send you back a code.

Yea, so there goes my rant about that really confusing topic.. But it was still pretty interesting to learn.

Comments #

shawn: It could be different in canada, but in the states, it's a law that you cannot charge money to enter a contest that is completely dependent on chance. If there's some sort of real competition, then you can charge entry fees. So if a company is doing some sort of give-a-way contest with their product, they have to also provide a way for you to request free contest entries without buying it. I'm not entirely sure why that law exists, probably because if you had to pay for entries, you'd basically be trying to win a lottery, and I don't think non-governmental agencies can run lotteries. But then again, aren't raffles sort of the same thing as a lottery? I dunno. I bet I could look it up if I wasn't so lazy.

Gavin: Ah, just like the rule in canada where you can't win anything without some sort of skill testing question.

Thanks for clearing that up.