Shell has run three versions of the Shell Make Money game in the UK.
THE 1966 VERSION
The first, in 1966 (above), offering cash prizes of up to £100, was created and supplied by Ralph Glendinning of Glendinning Associates, an American marketing consultancy. The game was a huge success but there were grave doubts about the legality. Shell was concerned about the possibility of being prosecuted in the UK for conducting an illegal lottery. Shell was also rightly concerned about the security of the half-note currency.
More information further down this page.
THE 1984 VERSION (THE MAIN SUBJECT OF THIS ARTICLE)
The second version was launched in 1984 (envelope above) offering cash prizes of up to £10,000. It was created and supplied by Don Marketing, a UK promotional games company founded by John Donovan, his family, and Don Redhead, a Chartered Accountant/mathematician. Don Marketing supplied a QC’s opinion to Shell confirming legality. The promotion, known internally as Operation Leo, was a huge success.
The 1984 promotion stemmed from this letter from Shell U.K. Oil to John Donovan dated 3rd June 1981 agreeing on joint rights to the legal version of Shell Make Money game devised by Don Marketing.
THE 1994 VERSION
The third and most recent, in 1994, offered cash prizes up to £25,000. Unfortunately, the game was insecure and proved to be a dud. Before it was even launched, the ill-fated promotion was the subject of a high court writ from Don Marketing alleging that Shell had stolen the concept. Shell settled the claim out of court paying a substantial sum to Don Marketing. Directors of Don Marketing, in the presence of Don’s solicitor, Mr Richard Woodman of Royds Treadwell, demonstrated to three Shell representatives, including Shell lawyers, that the game was so insecure that all prize-winning pieces could potentially be identified and removed by dishonest forecourt staff. More information further down this page.
DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT THE 1984 SHELL MAKE MONEY GAME
Make Money Entry Form for a UK Institute of Sales Promotion Award (all 7 pages)
Assessment of the 1984 Shell Make Money game signed by Shell UK Ltd Retail Advertising Manager, Mr Michael Beach who testified to the astonishing success of the Don Marketing Shell Make Money promotion launched on 13th February 1984. Finish date 30th April 1984.
EXTRACTS FROM THE ENTRY FORM
3. Scheme Mechanics
The original ‘Make Money’ was a huge success in 1966, but would have been illegal to run in 1984. However new printing technology was developed to produce a match up ‘currency note’ game which would meet the most stringent security needs of today’s marketplace, yet provide both an exciting and stylish game for motorists.
A NO PURCHASE necessary game of chance was devised, to run for a 12 week period at almost 3,000 Shell sites round the country. Motorists collected their sealed half notes -one per visit, and one visit per day. The left and right-hand half notes were printed in sufficient quantities to allow every regular Shell motorist to collect at least one common half note of each of the 6 denominations, with a good chance of matching up one of them with its other ‘rare’ half. Prizes ranged from 50p, £1, £10, £100, £1,000 to £10,000. There were over 1m prizewinning notes in circulation, most of which were claimed, including all of the major prizes. During the production process. special attention was given to the even distribution and mixing of winning half notes throughout the country.
The game pieces for the major prizes all had special security marks, and these were verified by opening all claims under video-conditions to avoid any mal redemption or disputed claims. All low-value claims were instantly paid by the garage forecourt staff.
4. Communications
The promotion was targetted to all motorists, and supported by a major TV, press and local radio campaign.
TV spearheaded the media plan, and gained rapid awareness and coverage.
A mixture of 40 second and 10 second spots was used to build frequency.
PR coverage was enormous, this being the first really are large petrol promotion for many years. Apart from the editorial coverage in both consumer and trade press, motorists began to advertise In ·the personal column of the daily papers, and features appeared on The Money Programme, and Michael Aspel’s 6 o’clock show.
The £10,000 winners were also featured in several press articles, and the promotional game pieces were rapidly exhausted, even after two reprints.
5. Results
All major objectives were achieved. Within three weeks of the launch, promotional interest had reached fever pitch and sales were building at an alarming rate. Television, press and radio advertising added to the awareness and interest, and there was a danger that sales would exceed supply at the forecourt. However the distribution plan coped with the extra demand, and some furious competitive activity followed in which BP launched a mildly imitative scheme called ‘Money Match’ and Esso gave away glasses.
Overall, Shell sales averaged out at around 25% during the 3 month period, with some regional figures showing weekly gains well in excess of this. Pump prices were maintained and most enter oil companies followed the Shell strategy of promoting through added value rather than cutting retail prices to an unviable level. The promotion was tremendously successful, and set the pattern of trading in the market for the remainder of 1984.
Shell followed this success with “Mastermind” and the current “Make Merry” promotion, and the promotional programme has enabled the company to achieve all of its major trading objectives, and build up considerable goodwill and branding across their retail petroleum network.
ENDS
Don Marketing co-founder and Chairman John Donovan standing alongside a Shell Make Money game poster launched in February 1984 and in other countries later in the same year. The photo was taken in October 2020
Don Marketing also supplied the Shell Make Money game in Ireland and Singapore.
Large Shell Make Money forecourt poster. Approx size: 35 x 45 cm portrait.
More Shell Make Money Point-of-sale display.
Shell confidential instructions to staff
Shell Make Money 16 page retailer brochure (pdf version)
Or use your browser to enlarge each image
NEWS REPORTS
A detailed extensive article by Roseann Caffaro, Managing Editor, PREMIUM/INCENTIVE BUSINESS MAGAZINE: 1515 Broadway, New York, NY 10036.
EXTRACTS
England – Instead of cutting prices, Shell UK is filling tanks by offering motorists more than a million prizes in its Make Money game. If placed end-to-end, the 60 million gamepieces being distributed by some 2,000 participating Shell stations would stretch one-third of the way around the world.
Because this type of game had not been used for many years, game-
piece security guards had been tested against today’s sophisticated electronic gadgetry. So eight different security devices were built into the updated gamepiece, said John Chambers, managing director Don Marketing (Hornchurch, England). The firm has a US office in San Mateo, CA.
In the end, we accepted the argument Don Marketing had been putting to us in favor of Make Money for as much as two-and-a-half years,” Beach said.
Printing operations were carried out under tight security. The plates for making the winning half-notes were held in the printer’s local bank vaults. During the journey from the bank to the presses, the plates were constantly watched by Don Marketing director Don Redhead. As soon as the required number of winning halves had been printed, the plates were destroyed.
Marketing Magazine 16 February 1984
Shell’s current Make Money game, which has set off a price cutting war among the petrol giants, completes a hat trick of ‘biggest ever’ promotions in the UK for John Chambers. Three years ago, as sales promotion boss at Allen Brady and Marsh, he put together a massive British Rail multi-brand promotion, involving nine different companies, including Procter and Gamble and Unilever.
Still at ABM, he followed this up with a Guinness ‘Beat the Experts’ game, which ran in 22,000 pubs. That particular game was devised by Don Marketing, the games specialist behind Shell’s Make Money.
Chambers has now moved to Don as managing director. Thus, he can claim an involvement with the biggest multi-brand, the biggest drinks and the biggest petrol promotions. His ambition now is to wean the national newspapers off bingo …
Shell Make Money full page advert: Daily Express 21 February 1984
Shell Make Money full page advert: Evening Standard 21 February 1984
Shell Make Money whole page advert THE SUN Tuesday, February 21, 1984
Shell is back making money: Shell Re-releases the “Golden Oldie” of the Sixties: Incentive Marketing and Sales Promotion March 1984
USE BROWSER TO ENLARGE IMAGE
Anatomy of a Shell winner: Page 39, Campaign Magazine 27 April 1984
CAMPAIGN 27 APRIL 1984 Page 40 Associated full-page Don Marketing ad in the same edition of the magazine
The play’s the thing: Marketing 31 May 1984
Old favourites that never die: Campaign Magazine: 14 June 1985
Extract:
Similarly, Shell’s “Make Money” scheme – which was originally launched in 1966- was updated last year by promotional games specialist Don Marketing. Through the use of the latest printing technology, the 1984 version was produced for one-third of the cost of the original promotion. “We redesigned the game piece so that it formed part of the envelope itself and then used a special camouflage design and security inks on the reverse side to prevent people from seeing through the envelope,” explains John Donovan, chairman of Don Marketing. “We normally pride ourselves on developing new ideas and concepts – but the ‘Make Money’ scheme had been so successful that we felt it could be used again,” adds Donovan. “It took us four years to persuade Shell to run it again.”
Shell Make Money montage. Approx size: 20 x 24 cm portrait
Shell forecourt in Eastern England, sometime in 1984 when the Shell Make Money game was in progress. Three Don Marketing Directors, left to right, John Chambers, John Donovan and Roger Sotherton.
Related letter from Ken Danson, Manager Sales Development Unit for Shell U.K. Oil. Signature redacted for security reasons.
Mr Danson had previously sent a very warm letter to John Donovan.
The Finale: Article published in a SHELL IN-HOUSE MAGAZINE: PAGES 20/21: March? 1984
Don Marketing supplied the Make Money game on an international basis for Shell, including Shell Singapore. See posters immediately below.
Photograph of John Donovan from Marketing Magazine article “Games people play“, 18 September 1986
IN COLOUR
JOHN DONOVAN WITH THE SAME SHELL SINGAPORE POSTERS 35 YEARS LATER (December 2020)
SCREENSHOT OF SHELL MAKE MONEY GAME PIECE FEATURED IN A SHELL TV COMMERCIAL
THE CONTENT OF TWO SHELL MAKE MONEY ENVELOPES SHOWN IN THE SAME TV COMMERCIAL
JOHN DONOVAN PRESENTING A VIDEO COMPILATION IN 1985, WITH SHELL SINGAPORE MAKE MONEY POSTERS ON DISPLAY BEHIND HIM
VIDEO CLIPS FROM THE MICHAEL ASPEL SHOW ON LONDON WEEKEND TELEVISION featuring Michael Aspel, Danny Baker and Paula Yates. Package about how the Shell Make Money game became a craze capturing the attention of the public and the media.
SCREENSHOT FROM INTERVIEW ON MICHAEL ASPEL LONDON WEEKEND TV SHOW WITH KEN DANSON, RETAIL SALES DEVELOPMENT MANAGER AT SHELL UK FOR ALL OF THE DON MARKETING GAMES FOR SHELL IN THE MID-EIGHTIES
DON MARKETING DIRECTOR KEN BROWN INTERVIEWED ON THE SAME MICHAEL ASPEL SHOW WHILE OPENING SHELL MAKE MONEY MAJOR PRIZE CLAIMS UNDER VIDEO SURVEILLANCE IN ONE OF TWO DON MARKETING VIDEO STUDIOS
USING A MAGNIFYING DEVICE WHEN NEEDED
THIS SCREENSHOT SHOWING HOW ONE CLAIMANT HAD CRUDELY TRIED TO CREATE A WINNING MAKE MONEY MATCH-UP USING GLUE AND PARTS OF ANOTHER GAME PIECE
THIS SCREENSHOT SHOWS ONE OF THE CAMERAS
Val Hewitt, Don Marketing Office Manager, operating one of the video cameras during a Make Money prize verification session.
ITN CHANNEL 4 NEWS ANCHOR PETER SISSONS INTRODUCING SEGMENT ABOUT DON MARKETING GAMES FOR SHELL, WITH THREE OF THEM, DISPLAYED IN THE BACKGROUND, INCLUDING SHELL MAKE MONEY.
The Shell Make Money story stretches back several decades. It is a story of spectacular success in terms of a sales promotion catching the public and media imagination, while also generating a huge boost in gasoline sales. Unfortunately, the behind-the-scenes story is not so rosy. By 1994, a particularly cut-throat bunch of people were running Shell UK Limited. Their deceptive and incompetent behaviour poisoned the launch of a secure Shell Make Money game that year. Shell has rigged the prizes.
By John Donovan
The Shell Make Money story stretches back several decades. It is a story of spectacular success in terms of a sales promotion catching the public and media imagination, while on two occasions also generating a huge boost in gasoline sales.
Unfortunately, the behind-the-scenes story is not so rosy, with Shell engaging in prize-rigging, deception and outright treachery.
Many promotional experts believe Shell Make Money was the most successful sales promotion ever conducted. Don Marketing, the sales promotion company I co-founded, won an ISP Award for the 1984 promotion.
In an article entitled “Promotions that shook the Millennium,” published in the June 1999 issue of Promotions & Incentives Magazine, Shell Make Money was voted by sales promotion professionals as being the “Promotion of the Century”.
The following are extracts from the book “Beyond Redemption: THE FIRST EVER HISTORY OF SALES PROMOTION” authored by Colin Lloyd and Ken Spedding. Colin Lloyd is President of the Institute of Sales Promotion (ISP). Ken Spedding is an ISP Fellow and former ISP director.
From pages 53/54
By contemporary standards the Shell promotion was pretty basic. When you went to a garage and bought petrol you were given an envelope containing half a mock banknote with various values…” “In order to win and ‘Make Money’ you had to obtain both matching halves. The promotion took the country by storm and did wonders for Shell sales. It got massive media coverage, was a talking point whenever people met and best of all for Shell, it did wonders for its sales, giving a massive increase in market share.
A number of experienced SP professionals, including the authors of this book, consider it the most important promotion in recorded history.
Caption on a photograph of a Make Money game piece between pages 128 and 129:
“Simple but very effective. Shell Make Money is considered by many to be the best promotion in modern times.”
Extracts end
Colin Lloyd made a similar comment about Make Money in an article he authored for Campaign magazine published on 5 January 2009 under the headline: “Sales promotion in the 70s – you couldn’t get away with it now”. Under the section “The golden age” he again named Shell Make Money as his number one favourite.
I have a unique perspective, having insider knowledge of all three versions of Shell Make Money run in 1966, 1984 and 1994.
I approached Shell in the early 1980s presenting a secure and legal format for a Make Money game that could be safely printed in the UK. My company, Don Marketing, supplied Shell with a legal opinion from Jarlath Finney QC, a leading specialist in the Lotteries & Amusement Act. As Shell paid some of the development costs, we agreed in writing to share proprietary rights to the concept on a 50/50 basis. In other words, we jointly owned the rights with Shell.
The game was such a spectacular success that we run it for Shell in a number of overseas markets and won an IPS Award in the UK.
LITIGATION ARISING FROM THE SHELL MAKE MONEY GAME IN 1994
By 1994 a particularly cut-throat bunch of people were running Shell UK Limited.
The executive in charge of National promotions was ruthlessly ambitious, recording in his diary an intent to set up a business inside Shell and retire by the age of 35. He had a special relationship with a promotions agency and an offshore bank account. He rigged a tender for a major promotion and the contract was awarded to that agency even though they did not participate in the tender. This was like a horse winning a race in which it never ran.
Ideas that third parties had presented to this Shell executive in confidence were all channelled to the same agency, including promotions we proposed.
While I was already taking issue over a Nintendo Gameboy themed instant win promotion Shell had launched, the Shell executive in question raised the subject of Shell Make Money and said Shell could run it without us. I offered to let him have sight of the original written agreement between Shell and us. He said that he was not interested in seeing it.
Alerted by then to his predatory nature and despite his assurances that nothing was going on, I checked with an insider source and discovered that millions of Shell Make Money game pieces were being printed by that same printer we had used. We immediately issued a High Court Writ seeking a declaration and an injunction. Under the circumstances, Shell was forced to settle. Incidentally, Shell also later reluctantly settled three further high court cases we brought against the company for stealing our ideas. All involved the same dishonest Shell executive, who had been backed by senior management, despite being made fully aware of his dishonesty.
HIGH COURT WRIT ISSUED AGAINST SHELL IN RESPECT OF THE 1994 SHELL MAKE MONEY PROMOTION OFFERING CASH PRIZES OF UP TO £25,000 – SEE GAME PIECE BELOW, FOLLOWED BY THE WRIT.
USE BROWSER TO ENLARGE EACH IMAGE
In a written submission to mediators, Shell solicitors acknowledged that we had “perfect rights to claims sums due in respect of Make Money, and the agreed sum was paid within a matter of days of proceedings being issued.” The submission was authored by Mr Nigel Rowley of Mackrell Turner Garrett. (As can be seen, he argued that our high court actions in respect of two other Shell promotions were without merit. Shell later caved in and settled both cases.)
Shell’s STATEMENT OF CASE also stated: “Unbeknownst to Shell Personnel handling Make Money 1994, an agreement had been reached between Don and Shell many years ago granting joint proprietary rights to the concept.”
This was a pack of lies. We have Shell letters and taped telephone conversations, which prove that Shell executives knew about our rights to Make Money and deliberately chose to secretly move forward with their plans without involving our company. Unfortunately for Shell we caught them in the act and immediately issued High Court proceedings. Shell settled because it was forced to do so.
To our astonishment, when Shell launched the 1994 version of the Shell Make Money game we discovered that the game pieces were insecure. In an unusual meeting at our Fleet Street solicitors Royds Treadwell, attended by Shell internal and external lawyers, including Nigel Rowley and a senior partner of Royds, Mr Richard Woodman, a colleague and I identified the supposedly hidden content of the first 9 out of 10 game piece envelops inspected and then guaranteed 100% accuracy in picking out the winners. This meant that dishonest forecourt staff with access to stocks of game pieces could extract all of the rare half-notes (effectively removing all winners) leaving drivers with no chance whatsoever of winning any prize.
We did not disclose this situation to the news media and Shell continued the promotion despite knowing that the game was seriously flawed and absolutely wide open to abuse. The whole promotion suffered from a lack of expertise and fell flat. A great promotional concept torpedoed by inexperience and greed.
Shell Make Money featured in an article published by Campaign 16 Sept 2011: Why brands need to go cold turkey on price promotions
June 15,2006
Cast your vote for the best SP Campaign
Walkers, Coke, Tesco, Cadbury – the list of great SP promotions is endless. But P&I has narrowed it down to 50, and now it’s time to choose the all-time favourite. No doubt the arguments are breaking out already. Best SP campaigns?
P&I carried out a similar campaign exactly six years ago, asking SP’s elite to name which campaigns they thought people would remember beyond 2000. In the top three were Shell’s Make Money, Heinz’s Car a Day, and John Players’ Spot Cash; in the top 20 were the campaigns we mentioned earlier – the daffodils, Walkers’ Money Bags, Green Shield Stamps, as well as Cadbury’s Faberge-like Egg Mystery and Harry the Lime.
Cast your vote for the best SP Campaign (FULL CAMPAIGN ARTICLE)
Sales promotion in the 70s – Shell Make Money
Jan 5th, 2009
Sales promotion in the 70s – you couldn’t get away with it now
The golden age
Other classics include the Cadbury’s Golden Egg promotion, which had thousands of people digging up great tranches of the English countryside trying to discover Golden Eggs that Triangle had buried. Today the environmentalists would pull their hair out. And the free piggy banks from Gales Honey, put together in a mental asylum in Devon, did not look like any animal that I have seen.
Shell Make Money was my number one, and could be unbelievably successful in today’s climate. The Andrex Puppy appeal from my agency broke new ground for that brand and continues today in various incarnations. Heinz led the way with charity promotions, and its incredibly successful Win a Car a Day. Reputations were made, and sometimes lost, in two great decades.
Colin Lloyd is president of the Institute of Sales Promotion, a founder of 70s SP agency KLP, and co-author of a forthcoming book called BOGOF: The Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll of Marketing.
Marketing Week: Irate Don hits Shell investors: Page 6, 27 Jan 1995
Forecourt Trader February 1995.
In relation to the 1994 Shell Make Money and related matters.
EXTRACT:
Meanwhile, response to Don Marketing’s advertisement and questionnaire (see January issue) has been encouraging, according to John Donovan. In the questionnaire, dealers were asked to state whether they knew that Make Money and other promotions ” …were flawed” and whether they would have continued to run the promotions if they had been made aware of the fact.
From the front page of Forecourt Trader February 1995
From Page 11, Marketing Week March 24, 1995
From page 10, Marketing Week May 26, 1995
Alfred and John Donovan did meet with Shell Chairman Sir John Jennings and the friendly constructive discussions with him led to an eventual settlement by Shell of both claims in dispute at that time. Shell had already settled the claim in respect of Make Money. Altogether, Shell eventually settled six High Court actions and one county court action bought by the Donovan’s or their company, Don Marketing. Shell also lost a case in 2005 when it attempted to seize the domain names royaldutchshellplc.com and royaldutchshellgroup.com.
THE 1966 VERSION OF SHELL MAKE MONEY
The first, in 1966 (above), was created and supplied by Ralph O. Glendinning of Glendinning Associates, an American marketing consultancy. The game was a huge success but there were doubts about its security and legality. Shell was concerned about the possibility of being prosecuted in the UK for conducting an illegal lottery, a criminal offence.
Daily Express Thursday JULY 21, 1966
Shell Mex, BP and National Bensole launched the game in the UK on Thursday 21 July 1966, with over 7,000 participating petrol stations. A full-page advert from the Daily Express published on that date is displayed above.
It is normal and proper to ensure all prizes in a promotional game are fairly distributed geographically. This basic ethical requirement was flouted. Instead Shell rigged the prize distribution so that more top value prizes were seeded into game pieces in the South East, including London, at the expense of Scottish drivers. Furthermore, the big prizes were deliberately seeded into games pieces given out at larger gallonage sites. So if you were a Scottish driver purchasing Shell petrol at a small local outlet, the chance of winning the advertised top prize was just about zero.
FROM JULY 1966 DAILY EXPRESS ADVERT
The innovative promotion proved to be a short-lived spectacular success after Shell stations ran out of game-pieces. Shell had miscalculated the number required. Furthermore, there was a question-mark over the security of the game-pieces imported from the USA. There was also considerable anxiety over the legality of the game with concern about possible intervention by the UK Director of Public Prosecutions.
RELATED TEXT FROM THIS INFORMATIVE WEBSITE
The original MAKE MONEY game was a promotional game issued by the Shell Oil Company in England in 1966. It was repeated again by Shell Oil – in a different format – in 1984 and again in 1994. This was a collect-and-win game. The original game consisted of an envelope (about 6.25″ x 3.5″) given to customers each time they visited a participating Shell gas station in England. The envelopes contain a game piece – a slip of paper (about 3″ x 2.75″) with the image of one-half of a British pound amount, either 10 shillings, £1, £10 or £100. The goal was to collect game pieces and try to match two halves of the same denomination in which case the player won that amount.
The game was launched on July 23, 1966, and was well-received by British drivers. This was no surprise because Shell had great success with their ‘Americana’ game in the United States the year before (which you can see here) and the ‘Make Money’ game was nearly identical. Both games were produced by Glendinning Enterprises, Inc. The Make Money game pieces were printed in the U. S. and shipped to Shell in England.
There were only eight different game pieces in this game; four were common and four were the prize-winning matching halves.
Because British law prohibited games of chance, Shell Oil needed to inject a skill element into the game. In order to receive a prize, players needed to answer a ‘skill question.’ The skill question was printed on the game pieces and the average ten-year-old could answer it. This, apparently, satisfied the legal requirement that it was not a game of chance (which it was) but rather a game of skill (which it was not). It is both amusing and frightening to see how powerful the oil industry is – that Shell could get away with this ploy which blatantly flies in the face of the law.
ENDS
Make Money front-page? article published by the Daily Mirror on Friday, September 9, 1966, under the headline:
“Rival firm makes new offer on the Shell notes”.
TYPEWRITTEN VERSION
DAILY MIRROR. Friday, September 9, 1966. (front or back page?)
Rival firm makes new offer on the Shell notes
EUROPEAN PETROLEUM announced last night that they will pay out in full on all LEFT-hand halves of £100 and £10 vouchers offered in Shell “Make Money” contest.
Shell pay out only if a motorist can present matching halves.
The left-hand ones are rarer than right halves.
The contest, which started in July, closes on September 14, but matching halves will continue to be honoured until September 28.
European Petroleum said the left-hand halves must reach their Leytonstone headquarters by September 19.
The company also plan to allow 2d. a gallon to any customer presenting and Shell half-note.
A spokesman for the firm said: “We shall be paying on a half-note, which Shell are not doing.
Shell declined to comment.
Cash
Drivers who call at a Shell filling station get an envelope containing half a “Make Money” note.
By the beginning of the month, 269 motorists had cashed £100 notes.
Jet, the cut-price petrol firm, have already offered motorists a penny-gallon discount for a Shell half-note – or 2d off for a £100 half.
Hoax
A hoax advertisement in an Ipswich newspaper caused a traffic jam in the Suffolk village of Mendlesham.
The advertisement said that the resident of No. 3 Station-way had the left-hand half of a Shell £100 note, and was prepared to share the prize with the owner of a right-hand half, which is relatively common.
Hundreds of motorists grabbed their right-hand halves and drove to the village.
When they demanded directions to No. 3 Station-way they all got the same answer: “There is no such address.”
Shell circulated an interim 10-page internal report while the Shell Make Money game in 1966 was still in progress.
Some extracts:
From page 1
The use of Make Money in the United Kingdom always entailed a legal risk.
It is known nevertheless, that the Director of Public Prosecutions has taken lower court action against another company operating a promotion having similar legal features to our own.
From page 3
Our order for Make Money pieces was a large one – around
72.2m…
From page 4
Due to the urgency of our needs, some consignments were flown in. Boeing 707 charter aircraft were used…
We also arranged with our game piece distributors that the cartons containing the£100 winners should be sent in the great majority of cases to those of our sites handling larger gallonage.
From page 8
Sales results have been extremely encouraging.
These figures, if representative of the country as a whole, suggest a 50% volume increase for the game period…
From page 9
Make Money has delighted us all with the power of its impact;
EXTRACTS END
Note that Shell rigged the distribution of the top prizes towards “our sites handling larger gallonage.” In other words, motorists who purchased fuel at sites other than those selling larger volumes of gallonage had less chance of winning a major prize and in the majority of cases, no chance. That policy was unethical and dishonest. If conducted on the same basis now, it would put Shell in breach of Advertising Authority regulations.