Evening paper cleared of wrongdoing over 'free hair cut' promotion

The Derby Evening Telegraph has been cleared of any wrongdoing over an in-paper promotion which offered readers a free hair cut.

The promotion required readers to collect tokens from six issues of the paper, but one complained and challenged the availability of the offer after they couldn't get an appointment.

Ater investigating the complaint the Advertising Standards Authority ruled there had been no breach of the advertising code.

It said the Evening Telegraph and the hair salon, owned by the Francesco Group, had made reasonable efforts to estimate what the response to the promotion would be, based on previous experience, and allow enough time for everyone to take up the offer.

Because some of the alloted appointments were not at times suitable for readers the paper had decided to extend the offer, and the ASA said that despite the non take-up of some of the appointments the paper's original estimates had been accurate.