Tzah 2.0

Com.Vention event took place yesterday in Airport city next Tel-Aviv. Participants in the event were amongst who’s who in Israeli Internet industry including Yossi Vardi, Amos Shapira (CEO of Cellcom, a major Israeli telecommunication company), Ron Eilon (CEO of Yes, Israel sole satellite television provider) and other distinguished guests from Israel and abroad.

During the day, Pelephone, another Israeli-based telecommunications company, had a booth which aimed to create buzz around the company’s new High-speed GSM services. The booth had 3 positions to play Wii game where every 1.5 hours, a was given to the high-point winner at that time.

Well, it so happen that JAJAH’s very own Jasmine Aharon actually won (which is  actually remarkable given the fact she failed miserably playing Tennis Wii in the office)! Excited, Jasmine came to the booth to collect her prize, eager to hold the advanced WM 6.1 phone, try its features, twitter away using its qwerty keyboard and 3.5G high speed network, marvel at its beauty, well, you get the point. Only that the marketing guy at the booth had to brush away her dreams and return Jasmine to the hard, cold reality of Pelephone marketing logic. “you have to pay 70 NIS (about 17$) a month for 18 months if you wish to get the phone”. All of Jasmine’s attempts to get the phone for free (again, she WON that phone) or even for a discount were to a vain. Pelephone was insistent that Jasmine, which is a Pelephone subscriber by the way, will pay for her prize. Reluctantly and disappointed, Jasmine had to give up her prize and go home empty-handed. The same thing happen to other winners that day. Pelephone was not going to give the prize for free and so, many other winners decided to give up the phone. True, Pelephone did mention that the winner would have to join a subscriber program for that amount of money. Somehow, most of the people competing at the booth didn’t notice it. Even so, its simply short-sighting

This is a great example on how to create negative marketing buzz. After giving so much effort (and money) in putting the booths to gain attention, it’s really disappointing to see how, at the end of the day, Pelephone treats existing and potential customers. One of the winners, wondered what is the attitude of Pelephone towards her subscribers if that’s the way they treat the event participants which included CEOs, journalists, bloggers and other technology-eager participants. I truly hope Pelephone will come to their senses and give its prizes for free.