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17 January 2013updated 22 Oct 2020 3:55pm

Daily Express redirects searches to owner’s lottery

Heavy cross-promotion.

By Alex Hern

The Daily Express screams from its front page today about “OUTRAGE AS THE NATIONAL LOTTERY DOUBLES PRICE OF TICKETS AND CUTS PRIZES“.

The Daily Express, lest you forget, is owned by Richard Desmond, who also owns the Health Lottery, a major competitor to the National Lottery. The proprietor has taken every opportunity for cross-promotion between these two venerable brands, with headlines like NEW LOTTERY TO MAKE BRITAIN BETTER, as well as LOTTO TONIC FOR BRITAIN in its sister paper, the Daily Star.

(The lottery itself has come under fire for giving just 20p in the pound to charity, compared to 28p in the pound from the National Lottery).

But suppose you want to read the Express’s story on the National Lottery. It’s on the front page of their site, but quite small, and below the fold. You may just find it easier to search for “Lottery” on the main site search. But that won’t quite do what you would expect. Go on, try it. See if you find what @ropestoinfinity did when he pointed it out on Twitter.

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Searches for “lottery” redirect to the Health Lottery’s homepage. There’s not even any pretence that they are separate institutions. The Advertising Standards Authority might have something to say about that; but then again, maybe not. Last time they responded to complaints, they pointed out that, since the health lottery and Express are technically different companies, the advertorial wasn’t really advertorial. Will the Express get away on a technicality again?

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