RIDGELAND, Miss., Feb. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Cellular South, a leader in wireless solutions and innovation, launched a new advertising campaign on "Big Game" Sunday that showcases true-life customer stories about the quality, reliability and coverage of its nationwide wireless communications network.
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The campaign by the nation's largest privately owned wireless communications carrier features three customer stories that are an outgrowth of a recently concluded six-week long user generated video contest that encouraged customers to create and submit short videos about how they rely on the company's nationwide network for all of their important voice and data communications.
The "Your Network-Your Stories" video contest set customer participation records for a user-generated video program with over 65 entries. The company awarded $21,000 in prize money to six weekly winners of the contest along with a $10,000 grand prize winner, a $2,000 second place winner and a $1,000 third place entry.
"We're very pleased with the response from our customers," said Jim Richmond, director of Corporate Communications for Cellular South. "We have one of the nation's best networks in terms of quality, reliability and coverage and it's obvious that our customers wholeheartedly agree."
Commercials An Added Bonus From Contest
As an outgrowth of the contest, Richmond said the company developed the three compelling true-life stories into 30 second commercials that aired for the first time during the "Big Game" on Sunday. In one segment, Ross Taylor, a 15-year-old high school student at Jackson Preparatory School in Jackson, Mississippi, loses his Cellular South mobile phone in the woods while deer hunting in remote Claiborne County. Taylor returns two days later and, using a friend's Cellular South mobile phone, tracks down and recovers the phone by calling the number and relying the company's strong network coverage and signal.
The other two segments focus on a Memphis businessman who moves from California and his spotty mobile phone service with another carrier to Memphis, switches to Cellular South and now has nationwide service with no dropped calls and a paramedic for a private ambulance firm in the Mississippi Delta who relies on the Cellular South network to call in critical patient reports to local doctors, hospitals and urgent care centers.
"These true stories reinforce the reality that our customers rely on our nationwide network in every way and prove once again that even the most advanced wireless device is only as good as the network it runs on," Richmond said.
Winners of the $10,000 grand prize in the customer video contest were Kris Steward and Jesse Beake, employees of Honda Haven, a Memphis-based AAA emergency road service contractor, who used their true-life story of searching for a wireless communications provider with the best coverage and call quality as the basis for their "Helping Us Help You" video entry. Second place winners of a $2,000 cash prize were Jessica Welford, a 26-year-old paralegal from Lucedale, Mississippi and Washington state college film students Nathan Coltrane and Zack Smith, who portrayed "Cellular South Hikers" lost on a mountain in a snowstorm near death and use their Cellular South phone for one last goodbye with their family and friends.
The third place winner of a $1,000 cash prize was Joseph "JoJo" Dodd, a 16-year-old Picayune Memorial High School student, for his submission "Cellular South: There When It Counts," a short video that was actually a funny spoof on a famous urban legend about Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, an alleged ape-like creature that roams the forests in the Pacific Northwest.
Partners Help Company Score Big With Customers
Richmond said the video contest was managed through Vancouver-based Memelabs, a user-generated video contest platform provider that helps companies effectively roll out consumer-generated online video contests to gain brand loyalty in the Internet world. "This is a rock solid platform that allowed us to manage this very important customer interaction with a reliable and dependable third-party partner," he said.
The commercials were directed by Jason Kohn, an award-winning member of Uber Content, a Hollywood-based multi-content production company. Kohn won the Sundance Film Festival's 2007 awards for best documentary and excellence in cinematography for his film about escalating political violence in Brazil.
Cellular South plans to host more user-generated contests in the future on a variety of customer and company-driven topics, Richmond said. "We're excited about the prospect of building on the momentum from this contest and giving our customers new and innovative ways to showcase their talents and interact with us," he said.
About Memelabs
Vancouver-based Memelabs is a user-generated video contest platform firm that helps companies effectively roll out consumer-generated online video contests to gain brand loyalty in the Web 2.0 world. The firm allows companies to easily and efficiently take advantage of the growing social marketing trends of consumer online video production, viral video marketing and consumer participation in online contests. For more information, visit http://memelabs.com.
About Uber Content
Based in Hollywood, California, Uber Content is a multi-content production company established in January of 2006. Now representing numerous directors with diverse talents, Uber Content has quickly become the new company to watch. Scholermann rounds out a company roster comprised of Jordan Brady, Todd Field, Jeffrey Fleisig, Gentlemen, Stewart Hendler, Jason Kohn and Dave Laden. For more information, visit http://www.ubercontent.com.
About Cellular South
Cellular South is a privately-owned diversified mobile communications company passionately committed to helping customers get the most out of their wireless devices and services. The company accomplishes this goal by providing the most reliable and advanced 3G nationwide wireless voice and data network, offering industry-leading unlimited flat rate plans, and through its online and in-store Discover Centers, which give customers easy, simple and convenient tools, tips, advice and information to get the most out of their mobile phone. For more information, visit http://www.cellularsouth.com.
