MTN launches World Cup Naira splash competition

MTN Nigeria has launched a Short Messaging competition tagged World Cup Naira Splash with anticipation to expend estimated N283,200,000 (N283.2m) in the next three months, even as it warned that no winner would be contacted via SMS or asked to send top-up value cards to redeem prizes.

Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer, MTN Nigeria, Mr. Bola Akingbade announced this through the General Manager, Business Intelligence, Mr. Abba Gana, noted that MTN as the official sponsor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup to be hosted in South Africa, has been working round the clock to make certain everything goes well.

According to him, it is in this bid that MTN Nigeria decided to introduce its latest contest for subscribers in form of the MTN World Cup Naira Splash competition.

The competition which commenced a fortnight ago without formal launch, he said, would end on July 13, this year.

“The Competition would not only provide the platform for us to enrich the lives of our customers, it would also afford several winners the opportunity of watching the FIFA World Cup live in South Africa, courtesy MTN,” he said.

Akingbade said that the competition has been categories into four, namely Daily Prizes, Hourly Prizes, Monthly Prizes and the World Cup Surprises.

He explained that for hourly prizes, N20,000 would be awarded at determined hourly intervals during the competition.

“This, would be awarded to a total of 2,160 customers,” he said.

Equally, he said, that the Daily Prizes entails that N2 million would be awarded to winners to be drawn everyday for the period of the competition, stressing that “In all 90 customers would benefit in this category.”

On the monthly prizes, Akingbade said that the sum of N20 million has been mapped out to be awarded to each monthly prize winner for the three months that the competition has been planned to last.

In addition, the World Cup Surprises, he said that 120 MTN subscribers would be chosen and sponsored by MTN to watch the 2010 FIFA World Cup matches.

“The sponsorship package would include flights, accommodation, match tickets and local transportation,” he said, adding that this category, he said, would run beginning last week till May 31, 2010.

Responding to questions, he said that the dates of the trip would be determined by MTN emphasizing that winners would definitely be informed before the trip.

To qualify for the trip, he said that winners would be required to possess a valid Nigerian passport, yellow fever vaccination certificate and travel visas which they would have to present to MTN or its appointed travel agency before June 4, this year.

“While every participant is eligible to win as many hourly prizes as he can, participants can only win one daily prize, one monthly prize and only one world cup surprise which is the trip to watch the world cup live in South Africa,” he clarified.

Further, he said, that the competition is an SMS-based interactive game comprised of a personalized storyboard and SMS dialogue.

He stressed that to take part, participants would voluntarily opt to play by sending ‘Go’ via SMS to the dedicated short code ‘2010’ at a cost of N100 per SMS.

He enjoined customers on the network to play as many times as possible so as to continue to accumulate points as a customer who wins previously still has ample chances of winning the hourly prizes severally.


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