Auction winner Kristina Vuckovic with Richie McCaw and Campbell Live news team Jendy Harper and camera man Christie Douglas.
GLIDING WAS THE WINNER Ri ch ie. on gl id in g by ar e br ie fe d vid Da er he r pa rtn C hl oe an d
It wasn’t your usual TradeMe fundraising auction. Sure, the respondents were bidding to spend time with a celebrity and the money was going to good causes but there was a twist. The celebrity was All Black’s captain Richie McCaw and the winner was paying to fly with him in a glider. The auctions were the brainchild of Canterbury Gliding Club member John Ahearn. He says, “When considering promotional activities, you have to keep in mind that if you want media coverage you have to have an interesting story to tell, something customers can connect with.” The Canterbury Gliding Club wanted to make use of club member Richie’s high profile as the All Black’s captain and allround good guy. They had to think big. Winning IRB player of the year for the last three years makes Richie an international star. The idea to auction a trial flight with Richie as the instructor ticked a lot of boxes, including: there could be world-wide involvement, it ran for 10 days, all gliding clubs would benefit and it could make use of the web to connect with more customers. TradeMe put the auction on their ‘Hot Auctions’ page. It didn’t quite go ‘viral’ however it did get links on the All Black’s web site, who also featured it on their Twitter and FaceBook pages. The All Blacks FaceBook site is the largest in NZ. Over 600,000 members received that link. The first auction attracted over 12,000 hits. It was very important to get a charity on board. John Ahearn says, “This seems so simple now but at first all we were thinking about was how much money the club could make from the auctions. The importance of teaming up with a charity was really hammered home to me later on when I approached the TV stations about our story. Their first question was, ‘Which charity are you working with?’ Raising funds to repair the earthquake damage to the Hororata church made a good story and helped the club’s relationship with our Hororata neighbours. Choosing the All Blacks official charity, KidsCan, as the beneficiary for the second auction was really simple when the All Blacks agreed to put the auction story on their web and social networks sites.” The flights were scheduled to fit Richie’s time off and so not interfere with any All Blacks commitments - something the fans / bidders could really relate to. The ‘Ask the seller’ section of the TradeMe auction site gave the fans / bidders an opportunity to ask questions about the auction but they also asked a lot of other
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April 2011
