PromoVeritas oversee Heart’s Make Me A Millionaire
Heart, the UK’s biggest commercial radio brand, gave away £1 million pounds to one lucky listener this May, as part of their competition, Heart’s Make Me A Millionaire. With the help of the team at PromoVeritas, Heart were able to give away a bumper prize of £1million, despite the challenge of operating a live competition in the middle of a global pandemic.
To find out more about what happened, we spoke to Michael Bouvier, the PV Project Manager, our man behind the scenes.
“On Thursday 7th May, listeners across the country nationwide were on the edge of their seats as the grand final of Heart’s Make Me a Millionaire took place live from Heart’s studios in London’s Leicester Square.
For 11 weeks, Heart had been giving listeners the chance to win instant cash prizes or swap them for a place in a final live draw with a single prize of £1million – the largest sum ever given away by a UK radio station. Hundreds of people chose to take the money there and then – but twenty-nine brave listeners decided to go in for the chance to win the £1million jackpot instead, with one even turning down an instant prize of £9,000!
On the morning of the finale, Heart Breakfast show presenters, Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden, conducted an initial draw, using a giant bingo machine to randomly select nine grand finalists live on air.
Adding to the excitement, Heart then gave away one final place to a listener, picked at random, from those who had texted in that morning after hearing an Adele song play on the show. 
Listeners were on the edge of their seats as one-by-one the ten finalists chose a numbered, secured box from one to ten and Amanda Holden – wearing a dress made of money – opened and read out the hidden prize inside. The tension grew as, box by box, each one was opened revealing a prize of just £1,000 with the elusive £1m still to be found. Hearts were definitely racing!
Incredibly, as the ninth box was opened, revealing another £1,000 prize, it was left to the last finalist, Tommy, who had only come into the final on the same morning, to open the final box, box number ten. The nation listened and watched online as Amanda Holden revealed that it contained the jackpot prize of £1million pounds. The win was made even more timely when keyworker Tommy called his girlfriend, an NHS nurse, live on-air to tell her his big news.
It was PromoVeritas’ job to guarantee that such a valuable prize was given away completely fairly, securely and in conformance with the CAP Code which says that for prize draws “…prizes are [to be] awarded in accordance with the laws of chance and by an independent person, or under the supervision of an independent person”. There must be no risk of a leak or bad practice by anyone involved, especially when large sums of money are at stake.
Amidst difficult circumstances, it was a tremendous conclusion to an exciting promotion which required a huge amount of preparation and work by the teams at Global and PromoVeritas, to ensure that the competition could still take place fairly and safely.
Heart followed all of PromoVeritas’ processes to ensure that their promotion was totally compliant. The client was delighted with both the audience reactions and the safe operation of the promotion – ‘so glad you guys were involved’!”
The Takeaway: During a crisis rules often go out of the window and people throw caution to the wind, but it is now more important than ever to do the right thing by the public. Brands stand to gain only trust and respect when they stick to the rules and make their promotions fair for everyone entering.
To find out more about how to run a promotion live, and our adjudication capabilities contact info@promoveritas.com.