For the second year in a row, Tony Hawk decided to play the Easter bunny. On Easter Sunday, he hosted the second annual Tony Hawk Treasure Hunt on Twitter, during which he gave away skateboards, backpacks, guitars and other merchandise to fans out of the goodness of his heart. His fans were alerted to the news via announcements on his website (“Be sure to follow Tony on Twitter on Sunday for the 2nd Annual Easter Weekend Twitter Hunt.”) His Twitter feed also read: “Late tonight & all day tomorrow = TH Treasure Hunt (#THTH) Tweet-flood. Learn it, know it, live it … or unfollow.”
Hawk is already known for his generous spirit through the work he does with his own charitable foundation, but in this speech at UCLA last year, Hawk spoke about what inspired the unique Easter Twitter Treasure Hunt. “I saw the effects [Twitter] was having … it’s very instantaneous; it’s very real time. … I was home one day, and I had an extra skateboard in my car. I just tossed it off the side of this main road by my house on my way to my ramp. And I [tweeted]: ‘Hey, I just threw a skateboard into the bushes … go find it.’ And people went crazy. They were retweeting it to each other, like ‘You guys work over there, go find it! Go get it!’ And like 20 minutes later I get a response from this girl like ‘Thank you! I found it; it’s awesome!’”
“So, I decided I should do this on a big scale. So on Easter, I sent out like 60 decks all across the globe — mostly the US — to various people that I trusted, mostly in big cities. … I said, all right, this is gonna be crazy, but I’m pretty much gonna blow up Twitter on Easter. People were hiding decks and tweeting locations and would copy and paste them into a Twitter window. … I thought it would be something fun and kind of a novelty. I was on my computer on Easter day for hours — trying to either tweet the locations, or scan replies to see who found them. … So that was my Twitter treasure hunt. … It was a lot of work, but it was a success, I guess, because people are always pitching companies with that idea now.”
Hawk’s Treasure Hunt definitely inspired a new kind of customer-loyalty marketing, and a new way to connect with fans. Both Jet Blue and indie band MGMT have held successful marketing promotions via Twitter. In honor of their tenth anniversary, Jet Blue recently gave away free tickets by revealing giveaway locations all over New York City on their Twitter page. As part of promoting their new album, Congratulations, MGMT recently sent fans in select cities to specific locations via @whereismgmt on Twitter and gave prizes to the first ones to arrive.
Even though it was a lot of work — and required Hawk to stay glued to his computer for the entirety of the day, the skateboarder decided to repeat his Tweetfeat this year. After all, look at the viral marketing phenomenon he’s inspired. All day long, tweets containing both clues as well as Twitpics of jubilant treasure hunters with their bounty rolled down Hawk’s Twitter page as well as any tweets with the hashtag #THTH. Messages of thanks from happy Hawk fans came across the Twitter transom all day.
@mkbain: “I just won #thth – a freakin guitar! Tony Hawk is awesome!”
@jvanhorsen @tonyhawk Absolutely amazing, we can’t thank you enough. Now to look into guitar lessons #thth
@photoj1 @tonyhawk is the most amazing guy! #thth what an awesome idea. Thanks to all involved. Best Easter ever!
Photos by Tinou Bao via Wikimedia Commons, photo via @jvanhorsen.