By Princewill Ekwujuru
Promotions are marketing instruments meant for rewarding customer loyalty. But when it is doubted by supposed customers, then, there is a problem. Even some agencies saddled with the responsibility of regulating and controlling promos look the other way when deceit takes over and subscribers are confused knowing not the authorities to report the incident to, this becomes more pathetic.

To make matters worse, daily, the media are awash with adverts and press releases driving these promos to the detriment of unsuspecting consumers who believe that if they do not win, some other persons would have won somewhere, which is a tactical play on the minds and psyche of consumers.

Though the media, both broadcast and print, are culpable in this regard, but, because they have enjoyed  most of these companies’ patronage, advert-wise, that gives the organisers the boldness to perpetrate the deceit. Then, if   promos are the only way to reward consumers, it is now a veritable tool in the hands of promo organisers  to deprive customers of their hard earnings.

However, there is no doubt that consumers have keyed into promos. But, the questions are: Are promotional gift items commensurate with consumers’ investments/patronage before / during promotions? or Where are the winners? Even where promises are made, some companies don’t fulfill them.

Before now, regulatory authorities to monitor promises by promo organisers were not in place, thus organisers capitalised on the loop- hole to give unfounded promises. But today, regulatory authorities are in place and had insisted that gift items promised by promo organisers are delivered.

For this reason, regulatory bodies attend promo draws to authenticate such, but with the Etisalat Recharge Every one Hour and Win Blackberry, the latest, Coca Cola’s N1million for 70 days promo, have not lived to their billing, reasons are that  no clear evidence showed that organisers delivered as promised and as to evidence on whether regulatory bodies and the media witnessed the prize-giving ceremony is unavailable, particularly for the Etisalat, Visafone, Airtel promos.

For the Coca cola promo, consumers had complained that when the numbers on the cork are sent, a message tells the consumer;  “Sorry, your message does not contain a valid code,” when  consumers cannot generate the code.

In order to determine the veracity of some of these promos, Vanguard went to town to determine the  impact of the promos overtime,and investigation showed that of the  178 respondents spoken to, who were subscribers to the Etisalat, Visafone, Zoom and  Airtel networks, all said they were aware of their promos, while 75 said they participated in several that yielded nothing, 55 said they spent between N21,000 to N52, 000 per week and 45 respondents said they spent between N17,000 to N21,000 weekly, while three of the respondents said they do not believe in promos, even where some organisers give T-shirts, rubber wrist watches, mugs, low end phones, biros etc.

However, respondents spoken to bemoaned the latest promo by Etisalat, and previous ones by Airtel, Zoom and Visafone. According to Mr. Moses Rumuone, a subscriber to one of the networks with tears, said: “This promo is not transparent, I don’t know if the prizes are actually given, I have recharged over N20,000.”

For Mrs. Omobola Ige, the story was the same. Another subscriber, Patrick Nwogu, pharmacist, said he had participated in the first week of the promo, but found out that it was not yielding. However, from what is deduced, it is evident that the promo never lived to its billing.

Mr. Emmanuel Jeminiwa, Deputy Director in NLRC, said promos are  integral part of marketing, but may not be the only method of rewarding loyalty.

He  further said that the NLBC gets involved in promotions to ensure that promises made during promotional campaigns were fulfilled, while stating that promotion has become dynamic due to the involvement of many regulating and controlling agencies.