Was ING Direct THRiVEtastic Really a Success?

On Wednesday March 9th, 2011, ING Direct held an event, named the THRiVEtastics; the THRiVEtastics aim was to raise awareness of their new THRIVE chequing account, and donate money to various charities.

This particular event had 4 celebrities, in 4 cities across Canada travel throughout their city purchasing goods to give away, and donating money to charities, on top of the charity they were working towards. The goal was to spend $7,000 from ING Direct on anyone but themselves within 7 hours, allowing them to win $15,000 for the charity of their choice, and another $15,000 for the celebrity who did it the fastest.

The 4 celebrities were Amber MacArthur (Toronto), Trevor Linden (Vancouver), Henry Burris (Calgary), and Tammy Verge (Montreal).

As it stands, I am not a Twitter person, I have yet to get into it because I feel that I would be consumed with sending out Tweets, however for the THRiVEtastics I decided to hijack Bank Guru’s Twitter account and use it to tweet about THRiVEtastics and how it progressed throughout the day.

The entire day was painted in orange, from Amber’s track suit down to the car that was used.

Interestingly enough, since both Bank Guru and I were tweeting on the same Twitter account, he got a message telling him to stop tweeting for an hour; apparently there were too many tweets in an hour’s time.

How was the THRiVEtastics?

For me, THRiVEtastic had a little bump in the road as we headed to the wrong location (we all laughed about it), however that was quickly corrected and we met up with Amber at the first stop, which was Kidding Awound, a toy store, where almost $700 were spent on stuffed animals and other toys.

We then made our way to Lady Bug florist and $700 worth of flowers and dozens of bouquets were bought for the Dundas Square giveaway.

From there we headed to Bay Bloor Radio, and Amber then bought $700 worth of various electronics, which included headphones, iPod nano watches and much more for the Dundas Square giveaway.

At 11:00 Amber made her way down to Sick Kids Hospital to meet the people associated with her charity, Therapeutic Clown Association at Sick Kids. She gave away the toys she bought and donate an additional $700 to the charity. It was definitely a great sight to see, especially when the toys were given because coincidentally, there was an afternoon slumber party happening, which meant that the toys will be used right away for all the kids to enjoy!

Around 12:30 the total left to spend was $3524, and Amber still had just over 4 hours left on the clock.

Around 1:00 we made our way down to Dundas Square for the giveaway. It was great, as soon as we got there, we saw a person running around the square with a sign. His name was Luke, and he is a Ryerson student majoring in Journalism; he waited about 20 minutes (in the rain) and was rewarded with a really nice pair of headphones.

To be honest, I was only planning on staying till noon, due to an appointment I had at 1, but after seeing the reactions that were given throughout the day, especially at Sick Kids, I rescheduled my appointment. Missing the Dundas Square giveaway was something that I did not want to happen.

Was the THRiVEtastics a success?

This is the ultimate question, was the THRiVEtastics a success? Without a doubt, the THRiVEtastics was a great success.

ING Direct was able to give out money to the charities the celebrities chose, not to mention other charities who tweeted back about the THRiVEtastics. Amber Mac for example was able to meet up with UNICEF. UNICEF received $700, and can now provide water kits to 70 families!

Amber Mac officially finished THRiVEtastics AT 4:30, however despite her efforts she was unable to beat Henry Burris, who ended up winning the THRiVEtastic challenge in 5 hours and 29 minutes.

THRiVEtastic made full use out of social media, especially Twitter. There were over 200 tweets on the THRiVEtastic hash tag alone. When you include the fact that people were tweeting about the event itself without the hash tag, it is no surprise that Twitter was full of orange throughout the day. We were told it was trending topic in Canada but Bank Guru or I, didn’t see it so we aren’t confirming it.

I found that Amber took full control of Twitter, as she tweeted non stop throughout the day about the THRiVEtastics. Out of all the celebrities that day, she had the most followers and was definitely sending out the message of the THRIVE chequing account.

I had the opportunity to meet Christina Walkinshaw, a comedian with Yuk Yuks, she brought a lot of humor the event, not only making it entertaining for me but for everyone around her. I loved her! Well not in the romantic sense, damn it you know what I mean. Christina stated:

This is really exciting for me because usually I get to use my comedy charm is to make fun of drunk people at comedy clubs. It is nice to get out and be charitable, use my charisma to make people smile for good reasons, as opposed to make fun of them.

THRiVEtastic was definitely a great success, and I am happy I was invited to attend and shadow Amber Mac throughout the day. Take the time and look at ING Direct’s THRIVE chequing account.