Coral falls at the first - again - over new email gaffe

The old marketing adage of right message, right time and right place appears somewhat lost on Coral Interactive after the company was hauled up for the second week in a row over its email strategy.
Just last week, the bookmaker was forced to apologise for sending “free bet” emails to the wrong people, who did not have a cat in hell’s chance of cashing them in because their accounts had been restricted. The firm blamed an internal error.
Now, it seems, the company has timing issues, too, after it managed to send out another campaign – that offered free £20 bets to new customers – long after the deadline of the promotion had expired.
The Advertising Standards Authority launched an investigation after a new customer challenged whether the promotion he had applied for was conducted fairly because he, too, was refused.
In response, Coral insisted it was not really its fault – its email provider was to blame as it had sent out the campaign too late. It apologised for the error and gave its assurance that its third-party provider had changed its processes to ensure that such an error would not happen again in their future promotions.
However, the horse had already bolted as far as the ASA was concerned, and once again it berated Coral for its sloppy practices.
Banning the campaign, the regulator warned Coral – whose strapline is “raising the game” – not to circulate outdated promotions again.

TOPICS:ad regulation ASA Coral gambling