There Was Never a Shark

You may have heard about a bull shark roaming the waters of the Chattahoochee River a day or so ago. Well, we at AllOverTheValley.com have a little something to tell you: it was a hoax. We pulled it off and hopefully you fell for it!

Why a Shark?

It has long been the goal of those odd individuals at In Your Face Marketing to create the most recognized, unique advertising in the Columbus area. So when the opportunity presented itself, we just had to take it.

Brain-child of Jason Gamache, the idea of a bull shark in the Chattahoochee River would be perfect. He thought of executing the stunt nearly a year before it was pulled off, but other things always seemed to get in the way. After that year or so, he got enough time to set up a few meetings with staff to determine just how plausible it was.

After receiving the go-ahead, the group called on Generation Design, No Shame actors and the help of social media guru Lucas Shaffer of StandAndStretch.com.

Next a domain was purchased under a phony name/business so as not to be traced back to In Your Face Marketing. The name Breaking Columbus News was chosen and used to set up yet another account: one through Constant Contact, an online email marketing company. If you received an email from us, do not be alarmed! We banked them through our own personal connections from Gmail and Facebook, so trust us. Your email addresses will not go to any third-parties!

As we continued to bank addresses, we developed several drafts of the newsletters many of you received. We had to determine everything from the rushed, simple look of the breaking eNewsletter to the weather shown in the background in the photos pictured.

A draft text message was developed to send out. A fake Gmail account was created so we could have an untraceable Facebook and Twitter account from it. Our alias: Anders Rowe.

Later, a videographer was contacted to capture behind the scenes activity and interview people on the Riverwalk.

The day of the event, the eNewsletter dropped. Our team assembled at various stations around the office: monitoring and updating wall posts on our Facebook fan page, tweeting and retweeting on Twitter and calling into to every local media outlet available. When our hoax came full circle, and friends were asking us if we'd heard about the shark in the Chattahoochee, we knew we had succeeded.

Pushing the network stations was difficult, but finally WRBL 3 aired an unconfirmed story on their six o'clock broadcast. Victory was sweet! Tying up the loose ends in preparation for the reveal followed in the next 48 hours, leading us here. We hope you enjoyed it. And we hope you know now that you can Always count on AllOverTheValley.com to have the latest, best event listings in the area!

Well, What About the Pictures?

Some of you may have been lucky enough to see an image or two on a few strategically placed camera phones. This should serve as a lesson in not believing everything you see is true! 

First we took several pictures of the Chattahoochee from various angles, during different weather and at multiple times a day for lighting. This is one image we settled on.

Then we found images of bull sharks that fit the angle of the photos we took of the river. This particular image is of a bull shark being pulled in by a fisherman off Port St. Joe, Florida.

With a bit of editing in Photoshop, we managed to come up with an image that would read pretty realistically on a mobile device. Hopefully you were under the impression that it was real!

Credits & Special Thanks

Jason Gamache, President of Operations

Chris Johnson, Executive Adminstrative Assistant

Chelsea Spratling, Associate Adminstrative Assistant/Graphic Designer

Lucas Shaffer, Social Media/Technology Specialist

Zachary Bolien & Josh Rebuck, Videography/Photography

Albert Tommey & Generation Design

Steven Thompson, Medialance Design Studios

Reggie Lewis, Ink Apparel

Maryann Gossett Aide, Accounting

Adam Archer, Megan Noelle & No Shame Theater