Preston Street BIA Finds Its $5,000 Winner!

October 15, 2009 - The Preston Street Business Improvement Association has finally found a winner in the Catch Luigi Contest!

As part of the awareness campaign designed by Marketing Breakthroughs earlier this summer, the Catch Luigi Contest was an ambitious attempt by the Preston Street BIA to bring attention to the ongoing street construction in Ottawa's Little Italy and to inform those in the city that all businesses were still open.

In what was deemed a successful social media and public relations campaign, resulted in an almost embarrassing outcome: The winner of the $5,000 grand prize could not be found!

The Luigi Team did everything in their power to find their winner, Kirsty O'Donnell Hammel…but to no avail. E-Mail, telephone, Facebook, there was no response.

Rather than accepting the defeat of losing their contest's winner, Lori Mellor, Executive Director of the Preston Street BIA, once again enlisted the public relations skills of Marketing Breakthroughs to conduct a citywide search for Kirsty O'Donnell Hammel.

On October 13, 2009 the Ottawa Sun picked up on the story and printed a piece (including a photo of the contest's winner) on how the Preston Street BIA was looking to award Kirsty O'Donnell Hammel with $5,000.

Within no time, the telephones were ringing off the hook at Lori Mellor's desk, and dozens of people were providing her with clues on how to reach Kirsty. Sure enough, it didn't take long for Kirsty to get wind of her major prize being up for grabs if she didn't claim it, and she quickly was in contact with the Preston Street BIA.

Thankfully, this summer's successful Luigi campaign ended on a high note! The Preston Street BIA is thrilled with the result, and Luigi can now take a long overdue rest.

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