This is better than the World Cup soccer.
That was the general sentiment on Friday when it was announced that Table Mountain was a New7Wonder of Nature.
Table Mountain: New7Wonders of Nature finalist from Flow Communications on Vimeo.
About 1 000 people gathered at the amphitheatre at the V&A Waterfront to hear an announcement that had taken four years of dedicated marketing.
Flow did much of the work on the campaign pro bono. Our efforts included developing the votefortablemountain.com website and helping the campaign with social media such as Facebook and Twitter, which resulted in record traffic on the website at the height of the campaign. Flow also produced a video of the campaign that was shown at the announcement party. “We put in so much effort but it was such a great cause,” says Flow Communications CEO Tara Turkington. “We are so proud of the result, and of our staff that gave very generously of their personal time.”
On the night of the announcement Flow’s Cape Town manager Roy Barford and media developer Ingrid Sinclair ensured content was kept up to date, while project manager Leanne Pohlmann and media developer Leon Jamarie played photographer, as they witnessed the fruits of their collective labour.
Roy Barford says, “This is an achievement no person or organisation can claim full credit for, but it’s a huge honour to have been involved in the campaign to make Table Mountain a New7Wonder of Nature and I’m very proud of the work from Flow Communications in this regard. We facilitated an excellent online campaign, to which the citizens of South Africa responded brilliantly. It obviously wouldn’t have happened without their votes.”
The votefortablemountain.com website received 14 874 unique visits on Friday alone, with 69 424 recorded for the last week of the campaign (6 to 12 Nov). Twitter increased to a little more than 2 400 followers in a week, with special mention from Western Cape premier and avid Tweeter Helen Zille. Facebook fans doubled from 9 000 to 18 236 in less than a week.
“This has been one of the most rewarding and challenging projects,” says Leanne Pohlmann. “We were on our toes right to the very end when the announcement was made.”
The announcement itself was nail-biting, with thousands of people on site and millions around South Africa on their edge of their seats with the announcement’s slight delay. Flow’s campaign highlights video was then played which only added to the tension. In that moment Table Mountain stood tall with the other 28 finalists, and the video silenced the seeds of doubt left by naysayers. A few minutes later it emerged that Table Mountain was a New7Wonder of Nature and the crowd erupted. Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille was overcome with emotion, exclaiming, “This is an incredible moment for us. We are now a marvel of nature.”
Adds Barford, “It was fantastic working with the Table Mountain Cableway and other partners during the past two years and Friday night was the perfect setting to celebrate the success of the campaign with many of the people involved.
“We now look forward to building on the New7Wonders of Nature status, through the work we do with various clients, including Table Mountain Cableway, Cape Town Tourism and South Africa Tourism.”
Below are some highlights from the night:
