Basics are, Anthony (who is friend, not a client) got hold of me the Tuesday before the RingHunt was to commence and asked me to put the word out via twitter about what he was up to.
So I wrote up a quick blog, for a refresher check out this post here.
When this all started, Anthony had about 200 followers on Twitter.
Apparently ‘a friend’ told Dominion Post reporter Katherine Newton about it, who contacted Anthony via Twitter. This is when it started to take off.
Following a front page article in the Dominion Post, this reporter apparently decided to share Anthony’s details and all of a sudden, fair game. Media coverage of this ‘RingHunt’ includes, but is not limited to:
• Dominion Post - front page article
• NZ Herald
• Otago Daily Times
• Coverage throughout APN & Fairfax papers
• One News/3News/Campbell Live
• Sunrise Australia (see image to the right - he didn't want to show his face so wore a David Attenborough mask)
• BBC Radio
• Canadian Radio
• NBR online
• Sydney Morning Herald
• Melbourne Age
• Jakarta Post
• Wellingtonista.com
• The Sun (UK)
• The Evening Standard (UK)
This coverage is simply what we know about there was also coverage in Belgium and Vietnam. There also may have been an ‘exclusive offer’ put forward by That’s Life magazine which was turned down.
Even AirNZ got in on the act, offering up grabaseat from various regions to Wellington so that people could take part in the hunt.
By the time Saturday and the RingHunt commenced, the @donoogle_com twitter account had over 1,800 followers. Now I would really like to point out that this whole thing really was nothing more than a guy, who bought a ring for a girl, and when that didn’t work out, he wanted to give it away. Yes, exposure for donoogle.com was an added bonus, but it was not the driving force. AdHoc Hazel from NBR drew some amazing parallels “A search (Google) and then a donation (to charity) just like this Saturday’s gig, a search (the treasure hunt) and then a donation (the ring).” unfortunately this was not quite the case, however, very astute Hazel!There were some fantastic tweets during Saturday, which you can check out under #ringhunt but the Lord of the Rings references were my absolute favourite.
Word is, that as Anthony and a couple of friends sat at Dockside, they could see about 80 odd people in the immediate area as the hunt drew to a close, and when I say ‘drew to a close’ I mean, the 2ish hours leading up to the ring being found. Anthony was only 13 clues into the 20 he had come up with, the last clue referring to an ‘x marks the spot’ quite literally where the ring was hidden (near the Westpac Helicopter on the waterfront).
Who knows how many people actually took to the streets to look for the ring, although they were seen all over – including the botanical gardens.
Overall, it was quite a success for all involved. Almost. Not sure how happy Anthony is about being the top Google search result for ‘dumped dude’.
