The Unbeatable just got beaten

100 Cars. Beat that!

The “unbeatable” Celcom recently launched its 100 Days 100 Cars contest where they are giving away Toyota Camry every day from 2nd June until 9th September 2008. This contest is open to all Celcom customers both prepaid and postpaid.

Unfortunately the contest didn’t go down well in Malaysia.

On first impression, one may think that this is another loyalty campaign giveaway similar to Digi’s 50/50 (50 Cars 50 Days give away) based on top ups. The reality however is that Celcom is running a SMS quiz mechanism where the highest answered SMSes would be the winner. Reading the fine lines would revealed that each SMS question would be charged a hefty RM5.

Obviously, this contest mechanics would have attracted some attention.

BUSTED!

Several days later, JAKIM has ordered Celcom to cease such contest as the mechanics is similar to gambling. Initially it was announced as a temporary suspension for a short period of time, but it seems that it has been stopped for good. A quick check on the website shows a suspension notice.

It is surprising that Celcom, a big “unbeatable” company would launched such a campaign without consulting the relevant authorities. Obviously somebody was not doing their home work before the big blue go out with this mega campaign.

Some may ask, what is the difference between Celcom and DiGi’s previous campaign? Was JAKIM practising favouritism? The answer is quite clear really. On DiGi’s 50/50 campaign, winners are picked based on top up activation. This means every single sen that was spent to qualify for such contest goes into the consumer’s pocket in form of talk time credit. It is obvious that the customers would have nothing to lose. While on Celcom, each question answered for participation is charged RM5/each and this amount is burnt immediately. For the participants that didn’t get to win the daily Camry prize, their “investment” is practically gone down to waste.

Link: TheStar: Celcom unveils massive SMS campaign
Link: TheStar: Jakim puts brakes on ‘100 Cars” promotion

Which Camry?

By the way, we would also like to point out some inconsistency with the Camry Prize. The Camry sold in Malaysia looks like this:

Typical Camry you see on the roads

On Celcom’s 100 Days 100 Cars website, the Camry shown was this:

This looks like the US/Aussie version

So which is which? Did Celcom provided their web designer the right Camry images for website development?