I am not Willy Wonka (I rarely eat chocolate, candy sometimes, but chocolate never) but Wonka's story truly helped inspire this Cavotu Goldie contest. So I guess I can say I was Wonka for the month of October and hell yeah I enjoyed it!
The Cavotu Goldie contest was a great learning experience in regards to taking risks, utilizing my network, creating brand awareness, and spreading some love to total strangers. Yes, I could have easily just placed all ten hats around the Los Angeles area and maybe got better/same/worse results but that was not the true Wonka spirit. I wanted these ten strangers to feel lucky, feel the randomness and feel like they were meant to find this Cavotu Goldie hat for some odd reason. Hopefully I made someones day, made someone smile and made someone think. If anything I gave a complete stranger a cool hat and story to tell their friends/family.
I must say that this contest would not have happened without the help of my foot soldiers aka my friends. I want to thank them for their participation. Everyone was stoked on the idea and eager to play along. We were all anticipating what would happen next…creating excitement is cool!
If you are new to the blog, let me fill you in on what the hell I am talking about…
On October 1st, my foot soldiers openly placed one Cavotu brand mesh back hat in a popular public place in the following cities: Phoenix, Seattle, Vancouver, Denver, Chicago, Madison, Philadelphia, Singapore and Gold Coast. Each hat had an envelope attached with a Golden Ticket inside. The rules of the contest were simple, take a photo of the hat somewhere famous/recognizable in your city and post it on Instagram using the hashtag #cavotugoldie. The most creative photo wins, it was that simple.
Now I clearly made some assumptions here. I assumed the person picking up the hat would be able to read english, have an Instagram account or know how to get one. I also assumed the person would have a cell phone or mobile device with Internet capabilities. I assumed that they understood how to use Instagram and that they were familiar with the term hashtag. I assumed that if this person did not have any of this knowledge that they could ask someone who would know exactly what I was talking about. Maybe this was too much to ask society? Maybe folks are not this tech savvy?
The deadline for the contest was Oct 31st. I felt a month was fair amount of time for the strangers with their new hats to figure out the rules and participate or not. I am stoked to say that we had…wait for it….only 4 people out ten who actually submitted entries. Maybe I was feeling too optimistic but I was really hoping for a better ratio. Now I am even more curious as to what happened to those remaining 6 hats?
On October 1st, my foot soldiers openly placed one Cavotu brand mesh back hat in a popular public place in the following cities: Phoenix, Seattle, Vancouver, Denver, Chicago, Madison, Philadelphia, Singapore and Gold Coast. Each hat had an envelope attached with a Golden Ticket inside. The rules of the contest were simple, take a photo of the hat somewhere famous/recognizable in your city and post it on Instagram using the hashtag #cavotugoldie. The most creative photo wins, it was that simple.
Now I clearly made some assumptions here. I assumed the person picking up the hat would be able to read english, have an Instagram account or know how to get one. I also assumed the person would have a cell phone or mobile device with Internet capabilities. I assumed that they understood how to use Instagram and that they were familiar with the term hashtag. I assumed that if this person did not have any of this knowledge that they could ask someone who would know exactly what I was talking about. Maybe this was too much to ask society? Maybe folks are not this tech savvy?
The deadline for the contest was Oct 31st. I felt a month was fair amount of time for the strangers with their new hats to figure out the rules and participate or not. I am stoked to say that we had…wait for it….only 4 people out ten who actually submitted entries. Maybe I was feeling too optimistic but I was really hoping for a better ratio. Now I am even more curious as to what happened to those remaining 6 hats?
The first entry came from Norwich, England by @jamminbegood. I love that this dude is shredding at his local skatepark without his shirt on. Great action shot, the ticket and the hat are in the photo. Very creative. I was super stoked to see this one come thru. Thanks for following the rules!!
The next entry came out the Gold Coast, Australia by @dreadsflow who is showing off his skills on the local artificial wave machine. This dude has additional videos posted on his Instagram from this same day and he definitely knows this wave like the back of his hand. Again great action scene, key shot of the hat and this is definitely popular attraction in his home town. Bravo!
The next entry came from Phoenix, Arizona by @coopthompson who is showing off his love for Mother Nature and finding adventure in the great outdoors. I really love the colors in this image, great hat placement, amazing background location and representation of pure freedom and living life!!
And the final entries came from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by @andrewdelquadro in a set of 3 photos so I grouped them together for the sake of this blog. Stoked on the use of the national monuments and statues in his home town as well as skatepark shot with the Golden Ticket too. Nice work dude!
I just want to thank everyone who participated in the contest.
I will announce the grand prize winner tomorrow aka Cavotuesday on the Cavotu Instagram page.
