Walkers crisps holiday competition banned after claims it was 'impossible to win'

An advert for a Walkers Crisps competition offering 20,000 holidays has been banned after complaints the trips were virtually impossible to win.

The Spell and Go promotion, fronted by Gary Lineker, invited customers to enter an on-pack code into Walker’s website, which randomly generates a letter.

Participants had to collect all the letters needed to spell out the name of one of 26 destinations including Sri Lanka, Toyko and New York.

But more than 100 entrants complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that letters, such as C, D and K, were never generated meaning it was impossible to win.

Others reported problems relating to the website accepting the codes for the competition, which was advertised in May on the Walkers website, Twitter account and Facebook page as well as on product packaging and on television.

Defending the promotion, Walkers said all 26 destinations included at least one of the letters C, D or K - type 1 letters - and the company had ensured enough of these letters were in circulation to allow for 20,000 holidays to be won.

As far as it was aware, all consumers who experienced problems with codes being accepted by the website had had the issue resolved.

Following the complaints, the ASA said it was satisfied a small proportion of the total number of letters in circulation were type 1 letters, rather than these letters being withheld.

But the complaints watchdog was not satisfied with another part of the competition, the "random swap" function, which allowed participants to swap letters within a "pool" on the competition's website, which stated "all letters are treated equally".

The ASA discovered the pool was only made up of type 2 letters, meaning C, D or K could not be won.