Rod Baber is already the Guinness world-record holder for ascending the highest summits of all 47 European countries in the shortest time, having beaten the old record by four-and-a-half years. This Monday the 21st of May 2007, Rod entered the Guiness book of world records once again.
Rod set out to make the highest mobile phone-call and send the highest text message ever sent. Sponsored by Motorola, Rod was given a Motorizr Z8 handset to record images, text, video and audio content whilst at base camp and at the peak of Everest.
As well as utilising a Myspace and Facebook page, Rod’s moblog was updated live, allowing the world to see what was happening on his attempt as it was happening. This is an exciting element of what was a very successful PR campaign, with front page headlines on bbc.co.uk, The Register.com, an article in The Times on May 23rd, and many other D2C newspapers, websites and blogs.
The moblog was a late addition to the marketing/PR campaign, having been launched on the 15th of May with an MMS test post.
Through the 15th of May 2007 to the 23rd May, the Conquer Everest moblog achieved the following:
Using a moblog to document not only his journey, but his triumph, Rod gave the world the chance to share in his achievement as it was happening, whilst in parallel giving Motorola’s new Motorizr Z8 fantastic PR in a difficult to reach consumer segment.
moblog:UK’s excellent search engine indexing means that the long tail effect of Rod’s achievement will continue, with anyone interested over time able to revisit his achievement in image, video and audio format on his personal moblog.
Sherri Majid, Associate Creative Director, Edelman PR:
“If a picture tells a thousand words, imagine the possibilities with a mobile phone that delivers multimedia and broadband, moblog:tech and the most spectacular views in the world. Dynamic, interactive, strikingly visual, community-driven, moblogUK delivered results beyond our expectations. How else would you communicate the progress of a mountaineer attempting to make the world’s highest mobile phone — practically live — from Mount Everest? Instead of merely providing updates on his progress, Rod was able to engage directly with the community and gather overwhelming support as he made his way to the summit. But moblog:UK makes sense for online campaigns beyond our technology clients. We see huge opportunities for this product and plan to integrate moblogging into the mix wherever possible.”
