Submitted by Mike Grenville on Tue, 03 Jan 2006 13:52

Nearly 100,000 people entered a text message based competition in New Zealand to be the one to push the button to sink a real battleship

The Telecom Mobile Push The Button competition, conceived and marketed by TOUCH/CAST with Run The Red who developed and managed the technical elements, attracted 90,000 players and generated over 2.3 million player text messages (5.4million texts in total) over a 3 week period.

The contestants played out a TXT version of 'battleships' to win prizes, and ultimately the right to Push The Button and sink the F69. Jo Smith, a 22-year-old student from Te Atatu completed the HMNZS Wellington's final journey on the 13th November, pushing the button in front of tens of thousands of spectators on the hills, shoreline and waters of Wellington, New Zealand.

The HMNZS Wellington, also called the F69, was a Frigate in the Royal New Zealand Navy for 18 years and the British Navy before that. The former frigate was sunk in 26m of water and came to rest 6m below sea level at low tide. She is now going to form an artificial reef off Wellington’s south coast providing a great recreational diving facility and contributing significantly to the local ecosystem in terms of a habitat for sea life. www.divewreck.co.nz

Run The Red developed the TXT game and was responsible for developing and integrating the customised text application, web and WAP sites and the overall management of the technical components of the project. The event broke New Zealand's TXT campaign record - held by TOUCH/CAST and Run The Red for the RPS027 campaign, also for Telecom Mobile, in April 2005.

Photo credit: Oliver Lineham