Win prizes: Get to be quite near Marti Pellow

A heartbreaking tale from the latest batch of Advertising Standards Authority judgements, about a person who entered the Sheffield Star's Meet Wet Wet Wet competition, and won, only to find:

although she was in the vicinity of the band, she did not meet them.

Understandably, 'be in the vicinity of Wet Wet Wet' hadn't been considered as an attractive offer for the front of the paper, but the paper tried to mount a defence:

Sheffield Newspapers claimed that the chance to "meet" the band, as described in the front-page flash, meant the chance to be in their presence, to encounter them and to come together at the spectacle. They argued that the prize was detailed in the competition copy itself and delivered as described.

Furthermore, they said, the organisers let two of the prize winner's mates in for free and:

They asserted that the winner and her guests were in the presence of the band and that the lead singer blew the winner a kiss.

Come on, how much more of a meeting do you want than having someone mime a kiss from across a room at you?

Understandably, the ASA was having none of this:

We considered readers would understand from the claim "meet ..." that winners would come face to face with the band and would have the opportunity to interact with them in some way, for example by speaking to them or being photographed with them.

Indeed, trying to tell people that being in the same place as someone constitutes having a meeting with them - isn't that what low-level stalkers do?