Memphis Duo Wins $10,000 Grand Prize In Cellular South Customer Video Contest Showcasing Its Nationwide Network
Pair Snare Top Honors For Video Showcasing Network Quality, Reliability and Coverage
Jesse Beake (left) and Kris Steward (right) are all smiles as they join Jim Richmond (center), executive director of Corporate Communications for Cellular South, in displaying the $10,000 cash prize they received as the grand prize winner of Cellular South's "Your Network-Your Stories" customer video contest. Steward and Beake are employees of Honda Haven, a Memphis-based AAA emergency road service contractor, and used their true-life story of searching for a wireless communications provider with the best coverage and call quality as the basis for their prize-winning entry
RIDGELAND, MS - (January 30, 2009) – &Kris Steward and Jesse Beake, employees of Honda Haven, a Memphis-based AAA emergency road service contractor, used their true-life story of searching for a wireless communications provider with the best coverage and call quality to win the $10,000 grand prize in Cellular South's "Your Network - Your Stories" customer video contest.
The duo's two-minute video called "Helping Us Help You" was one of three honored in the recently-concluded contest, which set customer participation records for a user-generated video program with more than 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."
Steward, 25 of Memphis, said he learned about the contest from his uncle who suggested they chronicle the company's real-life search for a wireless communications carrier with good coverage and reliable service as the premise for their video.
"It was a brilliant suggestion and so we decided to take mobile phones from different carriers and use them in our daily work to see which one had the best call quality and coverage," Steward said. "As tow truck drivers, we cover three states and no matter how far we went, I always had excellent quality and coverage with Cellular South."
The video compared Steward's service with Cellular South to his co-worker who experienced dropped call problems and no service when using mobile phones from other carriers. "We just chronicled our story of comparing wireless services and added some light-hearted humor about my partner's frustrations with his service," Steward said.
Beake, 29 of Horn Lake, described the experience as "a creative way to take a real-life situation that we encounter every day when we're doing our jobs and make it fun and entertaining." In addition to the $10,000 grand prize, Steward also won a mobile phone of his choice and free service for one year from Cellular South.
Second place winners of a $2,000 cash prize in the contest were Jessica Welford, a 26-year-old paralegal from Lucedale, Mississippi and Washington state college students Nathan Coltrane and Zach 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
