The Girl Of My Dreams started out as a tongue-in-cheek experiment; something I had thought of in the pub after having an admittedly very different kind of dream about a mystery woman.
The story was that I woke up one morning having dreamt about a chance romantic encounter with a mystery woman and decided that rather than just get on with my day like a normal person, I’d start a campaign dedicated to finding her. So I drew a picture, registered a domain name, and slapped it online.
I travelled to London with a thousand flyers advertising my need to find this mystery woman, hoping that I would hand one to a journalist or TV producer and they would find my very creepy quest quite charming and give me some coverage. I got lucky and within weeks the story had garnered worldwide attention. It started with print and online press, with mentions in The Times and The Mirror as well as dozens of other outlets across the globe. I was soon featured on television shows including The Graham Norton Show, Richard & Judy, GMTV, and even Australia’s Sunrise.
Photo credit: BBC
What began as a bit of a pisstake quickly became a very surreal experience. I found myself giving countless interviews, fielding thousands emails from strangers, and getting paid to travel around the world looking for this mystery woman. It was the first time I realised how a simple, funny idea – attached to the right story – could really catch people’s attention.
More importantly, though, I got to meet Lorraine Kelly, who is every bit as attractive in person as she is on the telly.
Photo credit: ITV
STATS
- Over 2,000,000 views on the campaign website in the first week alone.
- International television coverage in the USA, Canada, South Korea and Australia.
- 6,352 emails from bespectacled women looking for true love. My email inbox looked like some kind of version of Tinder where you could only sign up if you had poor eyesight.
