An unemployed Saudi woman became a millionaire overnight when she won the Centrepoint Millionaire contest. Abeer Solaiman Al-Shaikh, who has a Master's degree from King Saud University, said she thought someone must be playing a prank when first told that she had won the contest. Unemployed for the past eight years and turned down by the Ministry of Higher Education for a scholarship to pursue her PhD in sociology, Al-Shaikh thought she was unlucky in life because of her failure to achieve things including winning raffle draws or contests organized by companies. She said she had taken part in a number of lucky draws but was never lucky enough to win any of them. However, winning the Centrepoint Millionaire Contest has changed her view on life. “I still cannot believe that I have won one million riyals. It seems like a dream. However, since I was invited by the Centrepoint management to receive a SR1 million check, bit by bit, I am slowly starting to believe that it is true,” Al-Shaikh said ecstatically just before receiving the prize money. She joked that she is ready to marry a decent man, “who does not just have his eye on my one million riyals.” She said that she has been a regular customer to Centrepoint, which offers all household needs under one roof. Al-Shaikh, who received the SR1 million check at a glittering ceremony, will donate some of the amount to charity, spend money on her family of six including her aged parents and two sisters, and buy a number of things which she only previously dreamt of having, besides buying a house of her own and, if the budget permits, pursuing her PhD in Malaysia. The month-long contest, the first of its kind in the Kingdom that attracted close to one million entries, was organized to announce the change of the name City Plaza to Centrepoint, one of the largest retail chains in the Kingdom. The SR3 million marketing campaign was one of the most expensive in the Kingdom with one million riyals in prize money and the remainder spent on organization and advertising. Neelesh Bhatnagar, CEO, Al-Bandar Group, a conglomerate that includes Centrepoint, presented the SR1 million check to Al-Shaikh at an awards ceremony in Riyadh on Monday. Centrepoint launched its marketing campaign at a time when talk of financial crisis was widespread. However, Bhatnagar speaking at a press conference said that the Saudi economy has been robust throughout this difficult period when people were largely speaking about the international financial crisis, which in fact has had little impact on the Kingdom, as evidenced from the fact that there has been no drop in sales at 38 Centrepoint showrooms located in 22 cities across the Kingdom. Vittal Prabhu, COO, Ravi Krishnan, COO Central Region and Suresh Srinivas, National Marketing Manager and other Centrepoint officials were also present. Bhatnagar said the Centrepoint Millionaire Contest was launched at all its branches with the basic aim of announcing and creating awareness of the change of name from City Plaza, which is already a household name in Saudi Arabia to Centrepoint which represents a broader regional identity including other Arab countries. “The reason for changing the name is that Centrepoint is a futuristic and modern name, more appealing to shoppers and easier to keep in mind,” Bhatnagar said. “The marketing campaign was very successful. We received around 850,000 entries, which helped us to keep a database of all our customers. We will continue to organize the millionaire contest, probably at a wider level in future and award Centrepoint Millionaire Contest winners in 2010 and similarly in 2011,” he said.
