By Peter Alagos/Business Reporter

Vodafone Qatar will continue its “3 Months Free” promotion despite the Communications Regulatory Authority's (CRA) order to take down the campaign from the market, CEO Kyle Whitehill told Gulf Times.
“It’s still ongoing because we don’t feel it’s appropriate to take something out of the marketplace if we haven’t had a fair and transparent process to discuss why we’d want to do something like that.
“So until then, we feel strongly that we would stay in place. And that is absolutely what our competitor has done for the multiple times when they’ve been challenged about regulatory issues over the last year,” said Whitehill on the sidelines of the Distinguished Speaker Series hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Qatar (AmCham Qatar) yesterday.
Earlier, the Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) ordered Vodafone to remove all its advertisements related to the telecommunications network’s “3 Months Free” marketing campaign, which was found to be “in breach of” the Code of Advertising, Marketing, and Branding.
But Whitehill stressed that Vodafone has only remained consistent “with the way the market has been behaving since June 2014, so I am not doing anything different.”
According to Whitehill, Vodafone has remained truthful to its latest marketing campaign, adding that the “3 Months Free” promotion was “well-received” by its customer base.
He noted that based on customer testimonial and Vodafone’s client research, “there was no confusion on the side of the customer and that they were actually happy about the offer.”
The trend, according the Whitehill, is heading towards specific segments of people and addressing their needs.
“It’s not like I woke up one morning and said ‘I’m going to do this.’ You do this because you talk to groups of people and ask them what they want…So we’re simply responding to what the market needs,” Whitehill stressed.
Asked if the CRA has already scheduled a meeting with Vodafone to discuss the issue, Whitehill said the company was yet to receive a formal notice for a dialogue.
“We only chose to respond in the media because they (CRA) challenged us in the media without any due process so we felt it was appropriate for us to explain our side here.
“So, now we are, as we speak, going through some form of engagement with the CRA, who, normally is an incredibly supportive and positive body and I am feeling certain we’ll come to some nice resolution,” Whitehill emphasised.
In an earlier statement, Vodafone maintained that the company “takes the issue of customer protection seriously.”