The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission is amending the relevant rules to bar the partner-based promotional campaigns of the mobile phone companies, said BTRC officials. In a draft amendment of the Interim Directive on Marketing and Promotion, a new clause has been added to bar the telecom companies from promoting their offer paring with partners from other industries, they said.
‘We have prepared a draft amendment of the Interim Directive on Marketing and Promotion where promotion through partnership is prohibited. The penal code also bars companies to lure customers with gifts and prizes to sell more products,’ a senior BTRC official told New Age.
He said in many cases, campaign runners and prize providers are two different companies which create complexity over the liability of the prize or gifts.
‘For example, X company promotes that it will give free products of Y company if customers buy more products of X company. Now in many cases, when a customer feels betrayed with the promotion the X company says go to Y and Y company says go to X,’ he said.
He also said that the BTRC received some complaints against mobile phone and handset manufacturing companies.
‘We are at the last stage with the draft amendment and it will be finalised soon by the commission,’ he said.
BTRC officials said recently the mobile phone companies went for aggressive promotion and in some cases violating the relevant laws.
They also said the amendment will also tighten some existing promotional rules.
Officials of the mobile phone companies, however, said such restrictions could eventually deprive the customers.
‘If the penal code bars such cross-industry promotional campaigns then it should be applicable for all the industries, not only telecom,’ an official of a mobile phone company said.
He said that banks offer different facilities to their credit card holders in partnership with other companies.
‘We have discussed the issue with the BTRC and requested them to allow us to run promotion in partnership,’ he said.
-With New Age input
