DTI Sales Promotion Permit for Blogger Contests Needs a Dose of Common Sense

DTI Permit for Blogger Contests

DTI Permit for Blogger Contests

Being practical in life is considered one of the essentials is survivng today’s world. And a core element in that is having “common sense“. This is what the current discussion on “DTI Sales Promotion Permit for Blogger Contests” badly needs.

I’ve been seeing online discussions in the past few days with regards to how much of the DTI sales and promotions policy can apply to bloggers who conduct online promotions and contests in their blogs. These are the ‘DTI permit‘ clauses we often hear in traditional promotions and contests conducted by businesses. The layman’s common assumption is that as long as your contest does not require a ‘purchase‘ to participate, a DTI permit is not required.

However, discussions exploded and got a number of reactions after the results of a group’s meeting with the DTI was published saying in summary that “individuals, bloggers, and businesses do need a DTI Sales Promotion Permit whenever they run an online or offline sales promotion even if there is no purchase required as you are targeting consumers to participate.

I wonder if conducting an ‘online promotion‘ and not an ‘online sales promotion’ would make a difference. :P

A number of public reactions and take on the matter has been posted in social networks as well:

Online Public Reactions to the DTI Permit for Bloggers Issue

Online Public Reactions to the DTI Permit for Bloggers Issue

Major points of discussion are:

  • Most bloggers hosts contest on their site in their own capacity and prizes are minimal
  • Most bloggers are individuals and not business entities
  • Bloggers conduct the contest not for profit
  • Then company raffle draws in Christmas Parties also need DTI permit?

After all that has been said and shared, my sentiments are the same as that with Carlo Ople‘s protest on DTI Sales and Promotion permit applying to blogger contests, which I support. I just don’t want to call it ‘giveaway‘ because no one can basically stop me from ‘giving away‘ anything that’s mine to ‘anyone‘ I want to.

Yes, it’s a fact that the policy is already existing and obviously needs an update. As much as the DTI wants input from the concerned parties in the industry about the DTI permit issue, I hope that DTI also do some of their own thinking, with a dose of some logic and common sense. They should realize the impracticality and impact of having the same set of policies apply to small blogger contests. After all, the policy was originally crafted only with traditional promotions in mind.

Comments
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    • almabuenviaje

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