Vincent Walsh – Blackbook Traveler

Jonathan Ansell

Scottish Traveler, Missing Melbourne, Australia

We commenced a sponsored Facebook campaign for Jonathan targeting the Melbourne area. For this campaign, we also shared the Blackbook Traveler Missing Person’s Poster of Jonathan in the comments section of the Facebook post and encouraged locals to print and distribute.

The campaign was successful, reaching over 20,000 people in Melbourne in 30 hours. Nearly half this reach was viral/organic, with 85 shares and 33 ‘likes’. We also shared the campaign on Twitter where it received a total of 18 re-tweets using the hash-tag #FindJonathan.

There was some talk that he may have gone to a festival in Port Arlington, so we emailed the poster to camping grounds and accommodation in this region too.

Thankfully 30 hours into the campaign Jonathan was located safe at Southern Cross Railway Station, where he had been living it rough. He was reunited safely with his family. We received one message to the Blackbook Traveler email with a reported sighting on a tram, but this came after Jonathan had been located.

Nepal Earthquake 2015

Campaigns for 7 missing foreigners and Recovery Mission with SAR Dogs Nepal

On 25 April 2015, a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal. Over 8,000 people were killed, 17,000 reported injured and 2.8 million displaced.

The popular tourist region of Langtang was hit hard, with landslides wiping out entire villages and trekking routes. Around 300 people were killed here including 120 foreigners.

12 days later, the Government ordered all International Search and Rescue (SAR) teams to leave Nepal.

This left many foreigners unaccounted for, especially in the Langtang region. Many families took to chartering scarce and expensive private helicopters, employing local trekking guides or turning to groups such as SAR Dogs Nepal to continue the search.

SAR dogs Nepal are not for profit and receive no government funding. Thanks to a relationship built up by Blackbook Traveler from previous campaigns; SAR Dogs requested all details be logged through our Missing Pages Program.

Given the time passed and local conditions, this was a recovery, not a rescue effort.

Blackbook Traveler made a difference by:

bringing families and their knowledge together to allow the search to better target the impacted areas – and maintaining maps, communication and registers via the SAR Dogs website.
using our fundraising experience through 20 previous campaigns, to help raise US$18,000 for the searchers – and to get it to them fast and direct.
coordinating embassies and missions in Country to focus recovery funds via SAR Dogs networks.
reaching over 880,000 people via Social Media Campaigns.
leveraging awareness to secure a 4WD and helicopter for the recovery effort and ongoing SAR Missions.

Speed is everything in these campaigns where bureaucracy and administration cost lives. Blackbook stayed in support of SAR Dogs until further earthquakes and conditions concluded the search.

Vincent Walsh

Irish Traveler, Missing in South of France

Vincent’s last contact came early into the famous El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage walk along the French / Spanish border.

For this campaign, we specifically targeted Facebook users in the towns along this walk plus a 15km radius of these towns. This included towns in the regions of Auvergne, Mid-Pyrenees, and Languedoc-Roussillon.

We also sent out a Blackbook Traveler Missing Person’s Poster in French. Both the poster and campaign were tweeted using the hash-tag #FindVincent. The campaign wasn’t organically successful but received a great paid reach of over 18,000 people in this region in only 18 hours.

This campaign was cut short when thankfully Vincent’s whereabouts were confirmed with a sighting of him leaving a backpackers hostel.

Rita Ban-Gagyi

Hungarian Traveler, Missing in Austria

Blackbook Traveler conducted a targeted social media campaign for missing Hungarian traveler, Rita Ban-Gagyi, who disappeared in Austria.

Our campaign, created in the German language, went out to Facebook users in the Austrian region where Rita disappeared, reaching 68,000 people over 4 days.

Blackbook Traveler also rolled out a media campaign in this instance, as Rita’s disappearance had not received much media coverage in Austria.

Media releases went out in the German language, targeting t.v, print and radio across Austria.

Rita is yet to be found

Tomas Princzkel

Slovakian Traveler, Missing in Nepal

Blackbook Traveler commenced a 3 day targeted Facebook campaign for missing Tomas Princzkel in an effort to spread the word of his plight and perhaps generate some leads from the locals.

The campaign, targeting people with interests in trekking and mountaineering, went viral reaching over 300,000 people in Nepal including 344 shares and over 3000 ‘likes’ and 125 comments with some good feedback from local Nepalese sherpas and guides.

For this campaign we were in touch with the Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Delhi, the Honorary Consul of Slovak Republic in Nepal.

We created the hash tag #FindTamas which was shared throughout twitter. Tomas is yet to be found.

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