Etisalat, UAE’s first and leading telecommunications provider, is at the centre of attention on Twitter, after it launched a promotional campaign featuring global celebrities like Gerard Butler, Hrithik Roshan and Lea Salonga, called #EtisalatChallenge.

The campaign was to welcome Etisalat users to find a domestic price package better than theirs, that they would then beat; an attempt at further raising the bar of the telecommunications service and prices in the country.  Following this, consumers took to Twitter with the hashtag to report complaints, rather than report offers to beat.

In light of this event, we bring you some reaction tweets to the recent Twitter storm:

I have an #EtisalatChallenge – solve all the issues people have posted through social media immediately without charging extra @etisalat

— Maha Husain (@BrainBzr) May 16, 2015

Another user wrote to twitterverse:

 

OMG! Why all this negativity? I really don't think this is fair. #EtisalatChallenge

— Danny Oneissi (@dannyoneissi) May 17, 2015

And this user made a very good point:

When was the last time anyone went to etisalat.ae to check out the new packages? #EtisalatChallenge

— Paras Irshad Ali (@Parasirshad12) May 17, 2015

Long after the tweets subsided, the UAE giant launched this video on May 14:

As one user suggested on Twitter, the company has, in fact, succeeded in garnering the attention it wanted and created off-the-chart interaction with users. Etisalat has an opportunity to use this publicity to show consumers they care, with a quick response time to the negative tweets and complaints.

Instead of looking at the #EtisalatChallange campaign with the angle of damage control, and having ‘The National‘ and ‘ArabianBusiness‘ articles taken down, Etisalat can truly take up a new challenge and please their loyal customers by improving services further. If you show them you’re listening, they’ll see that you care.

The question remains: Will Etisalat take this criticism in stride and prove it really is a giant?