Beeline Just Makes It Out of NATO
// The VimpelCom brand almost becomes part of the alliance’s history
A massive advertising campaign for NATO in Ukraine has collapsed. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reported yesterday that the cellular operator Ukrainian Radiosystems (which provides services under the Beeline trademark in Ukraine) refused to provide technical support for an SMS quiz contest on NATO that began last week. VimpelCom in Moscow stated that the reason for refusing to service the quiz was “lack of coordination of internal procedures during the making of the decision on participating in the quiz.’ The operator has bowed out after being accused of being unpatriotic.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry officially announced that the Ukrainian subsidiary of the Russian VimpelCom has refused to provide support for an SMS quiz contest on NATO that was supposed to start last week as part of a massive advertising campaign for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. “We have stopped the action with that operator. But we are in negotiations on holding the action with other operators. I think it will be held,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry press secretary Vasily Kirilich said.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry announced the beginning of the NATO ad campaign last Friday. As reported on the government website www.ukraine-nato.gov.ua, signs would be set up in Ukraine and the Crimea supporting Ukraine’s entrance into the alliance. Cellular providers, Beeline in particular, would also be involved in the propaganda. Beeline was supposed to hold a contest among its subscribers to answer 15 questions about NATO. Winners would receive trips to Brussels, where NATO headquarters are located.
Beeline was subject to criticism once it became known that it was participating in a pro-NATO project. In particular, the Novy Region information agency quoted Russian television host Mikhail Leontyev, who allegedly called on the Russian government to “strangle” the cellular operator, noting that, in the economic crisis, it would not be hard for Russian authorities to eliminate Beeline forever. “Let the Beeline management move to Brussels,” Novy Region quoted Leontyev as saying.
Leontyev was dissatisfied with the way he was quoted by Novy Region and accused the agency of “distortion.” According to Leontyev, the journalists confused him by saying that the Ukrainian provider had held a special press conference on cooperation with NATO. “I told them that, if that was so, I would strangle the company. That is exactly what I said, because it seemed strange to me that a Russian company would flirt with a likely opponent,” Leontyev told Kommersant. “But then it became clear that no one had given a press conference and the story has no relations to politics. Yes, I am to blame. I won’t have anything to do with Novy Region again.”
In the Ukrainian media, reports appeared that the “Russian community of Sevastopol” had called for a boycott of Beeline to “punish it with the ruble.” The most enthusiastic Sevastopolans even burned hundreds of Beeline start-up kits to protest its involvement in NATO propaganda.
At that point, the Ukrainian company renounced its participation in the project, as the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reported yesterday. “Its refusal to continue participating in the action was attributed to ‘lack of observation of procedural norms within the company at the time the decision on holding the contest was made.’ We are giving them time to think until we find another partner. You can say we tried to work with the company and it got frightened. We have to find the one that won’t be frightened by the first response. Especially if it is a Ukrainian company,” deputy head of the NATO department at the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Vadim Pristaiko told Kommersant yesterday. He added that no one initially had any hesitation about the contest.
In the Moscow office of VimpelCom, which owns both Beeline and Ukrainian Radiosystems, they explained that the source of the scandal was a lack of coordination between the main office and the Ukrainian subsidiary. “When the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry asked our Ukrainian colleagues to provide a number for the contest, one of the Kiev managers agreed to it without discussing it with the management,” VimpelCom press secretary Ekaterina Osadchaya told Kommersant. She said that the company had neither the commercial motivation nor technical capability to deliver SMS texts about NATO.
Vladimir Solovyev; Vadim Dovnar, Kiev
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 02, 2008
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