South Mississippi Teen Wins Third Place In Cellular South Customer Video Contest Showcasing Its Nationwide Network
Pearl River County Native Wins $1,000 Prize For Video Showcasing Network Quality, Reliability and Coverage
Joseph "JoJo" Dodd (right) is all smiles as he joins Jim Richmond, director of Corporate Communications for Cellular South (left), in displaying the $1,000 cash prize he received as the third place winner of Cellular South's "Your Network-Your Stories" customer video contest. Dodd, a 16-year-old sophomore at Picayune Memorial High School, won for his short video – "Cellular South: There When It Counts" – a funny spoof on the famous urban legend about Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, an alleged ape-like creature that roams the forests in the Pacific Northwest.
RIDGELAND, MS - (January 30, 2009) – Joseph "JoJo" Dodd, a 16-year-old sophomore at Picayune Memorial High School, won third place and a $1,000 cash prize in Cellular South's recently-concluded "Your Network – Your Stories" contest, which featured customer-created video stories and testimonials about the reliability, quality and coverage of the Mississippi-based company's nationwide wireless communications network.
Dodd, who lives in the small southwest Mississippi town of Carriere in Pearl River County, was honored at a special awards program in Memphis, Tennessee on Wednesday for his submission "Cellular South: There When It Counts," a short video that was actually a funny spoof on the famous urban legend about Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, an alleged ape-like creature that roams the forests in the Pacific Northwest.
In the video, two teenagers – actually Dodd's cousins Pace and Ethan Frierson – are hiking in the forest and stumble across a pink-haired female Sasquatch – played by Dodd - sitting on a tree reading the newspaper. When they pull out their mobile phones, only the teenager with Cellular South service has a signal and is able to take a picture and send it to the e-mail accounts of all his friends as proof of their Bigfoot sighting.
Dodd was helped on the project by his father, Sherman, a 41-year-old logistics manager for Air Products & Chemicals Inc. in New Orleans, who did most of the filming work. The award-winning video already had gained recognition during the contest as one of six weekly winners of a $1,000 cash prize after receiving the most votes from customers and others visiting the third-party website that hosted the six-week contest.
"I've enjoyed experiencing all of the awesome videos submitted by Cellular South customers during the contest and I am honored that mine was chosen as one of the best," Dodd said, noting that his mother, Rebecca, a counselor at Picayune Junior High and Mellissa Burge, a teacher at the school and a family friend, actually learned about the contest and encouraged him to participate.
"I'm proud of my accomplishment and this recognition will definitely encourage me to achieve even more," said Dodd, who was accompanied to the awards program by his mother and grandparents, Jack and Shirley Nail.
The "Your Network-Your Stories" customer video contest set participation records for a customer-generated video program with more than 65 entries. "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."
The $10,000 grand prize winners in the 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 students Nathan Coltrane and Zack Smith, who portrayed two hikers lost on a mountain in a snowstorm near death who use their Cellular South phone for one last goodbye with their family and friends.
As an added bonus from the contest, Cellular South received three, compelling true-life stories from the customer video contest submissions that have been developed into 30 second commercials that will air during the Super Bowl 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 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 and 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 proved once again that even the most advanced wireless device is only as good as the network it runs on," Richmond said.
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 www.cellularsouth.com.
