By Kei Emmanuel Duku
With less than seventy days until the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics games, scheduled to kick off on Friday, July 26, 2024, to August 11, 2024, Telecom MTN has launched a campaign dubbed “Play to Win.”
Launched on Wednesday, the “Play to win” campaign will run until July 31, 2024, and MTN subscribers will be eligible to enter into weekly draws and stand a chance to win motorcycles and smartphones.
Three lucky winners will win a fully sponsored trip to France to cheer on the South Sudan National Basketball Team playing in the Olympic Games.
Patrick Mwangi, MTN’s acting chief marketing officer, said the draws will be conducted weekly and monthly to determine the winners.
He stated that to enter the draw, subscribers who buy voice and data bundles will be able to accumulate points and automatically enter the first draw schedule for next week on Monday.
The sponsorship trip to France for the 3 lucky winners will include travel costs, accommodation, visa and passport processing, attending the opening ceremony, and watching all the Bright Star games while in Paris.
“Our ultimate goal is to have fans waving the national flag high during the Olympic games in Paris; however, at home, we have also organized the fan zones, and we will be broadcasting live all across the country,” said Mwangi.
South Sudan, ranked 33rd in the world and 1st in Africa, is the lowest-ranked men’s team to qualify for an Olympics, and this is its first appearance in the Olympic Games.
While launching the campaign, Ali Monzer, MTN Chief Executive Officer, noted that the program aims at creating peace and unity among Bright Stars fans.
“Our major aim is to unite the fans behind the Bright Stars and raise awareness about the power of sports in fostering national unity, as we quite know that the Bright Stars are the only team from South Sudan representing the whole of Africa in the Summer Olympics 2024,” said Monzer.
He further added that for every 100 South Sudanese pounds used for subscribing to voice and data bundles, a customer gets 1 point. Every week, there will be a total of 10 winners announced for various prizes. By the end of the 12th week, there will be a total of 120 winners, and on July 31st, the three lucky winners to travel for the Paris Summer Olympics games will be selected in a similar draw.
“The more you recharge or buy data or voice bundles, the more chances you stand to enter the draw; for example, if you recharge with 4,000 SSP, you will have 40 points, meaning your names will appear 40 times in the draw. There are no additional costs to enter the draw; only subscribe to our voice or data bundles and accumulate points,” explained Monzer.
Meanwhile, Arou Ramadan Chan, Secretary General for the South Sudan Basketball Federation welcomes the initiative saying it will keep the fans engaged through the Fan zones that MTN is set to establish to help the fans watch the games from home once games kick off late July in France.
“It is a good campaign to take three fans to Paris to watch these games; meeting the cost of traveling from here up to Lille in France is very expensive,” he explained.
The Bright Stars are placed in Group C alongside Team USA, Serbia, and Puerto Rico, and they will see their first action on July 28 against Puerto Rico. It will play again on July 31 against the United States of America and finish off the group game in August with Serbia.