We awarded Blaze Campaign contract after fair process, says Safaricom

Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore. (Photo: Jonah Onyango/Standard)

Safaricom has dismissed claims by an advertising firm that they irregularly awarded a contract for a youth promotion campaign. 

The mobile phone network company argued that claims by Transcend Media Group Ltd that they stole their ideas for the Blaze Campaign and sold them to Saracen Media Kenya Ltd were untrue.

Safaricom Head of Legal Daniel Ndaba said they evaluated all bids and the creativity of each company before awarding the contract.

“We duly carried out market tests of the creative works developed by the various agencies and the Blaze Campaign emerged as one of the strongest contenders. It is therefore not true that there were irregularities in awarding the contract,” he said.

Stolen rights

The media firm went to court claiming Safaricom had stolen its intellectual property rights for the Blaze Campaign and sought orders to stop continued airing of the advert.

The company said it had spent a huge amount of money researching and formulating its works as well as hiring experts to survey the youth market only to be shortchanged.

“They committed the acts of infringing our copyright in flagrant disregard of the law and in return denied the company substantial benefits from the campaign,” said lawyer Issa Mansur for Transcend.

Safaricom was accused of failing to pay royalties or acknowledging authorship of the Blaze Kenya Campaign, given it adopted its teasers, various campaign platforms, the approach and use of graphics.

Safaricom however argued that the orders being sought by the company could not be granted because the campaign has already been rolled out.

“It is manifest that the orders being sought to restrain us from advertising, rolling out and executing the Blaze Campaign are only intended to frustrate and derail our business without any factual basis,” said Mr Ndaba.

Justice Grace Nzioka directed the parties to file further documents before the end of January. The hearing was set for February 20.