‘Treasure Hunters!’ proposal and walkthrough
Treasure Hunters treatment
‘Treasure Hunters!’ – A fun, interactive multi-platform experience spread mainly across television and the internet, and for some users, i-phones. Each week the public will submit riddles via a website that will lead ‘Treasure Hunters’ to interesting landmarks, locations and artifacts found in villages, towns and cities across Britain, with highlights of the treasure hunts being broadcast live on the internet, and also as a weekly highlights television show, shown on Channel 4 on Sunday evenings.
Key features of this project include the Treasure Hunters website which allows users to submit riddles to be used by the treasure hunters, catch up on previous episodes and watch live streams of treasure hunts currently taking place. A weekly television show that accompanies the website will broadcast highlights of treasure hunts that took place across Britain during the week.
This project is aimed at students, tourists, and people who are interested in, or wants to know more, about their local history. However, the fun of trying to work out the answers to riddles your self from home should ensure that this project appeals to a wide audience. Students with time on their hands will be able to dedicate time to writing clever, thoughtful riddles to provide a challenge for the treasure hunters. Tourists will be able to watch treasure hunts and discover things that they did not know about certain towns or cities, with history lovers enjoying the project for the same reason.
Walkthrough
After being made aware of the project by the advertising campaign, for most of the audience the entry point for ‘Treasure Hunters’ will be the website, displayed at the end of each episode. Once at the website, users can choose to watch previous episodes of Treasure Hunters, watch a live stream of current treasure hunts taking place, submit a riddle to be used or apply to be a treasure hunter themselves, by clicking on the respective buttons on the sites homepage. Those wishing to watch past episodes will have a menu displayed in front of them, from which they will be able to select past episodes. Users wanting to watch a live feed will be shown a page displaying a list of treasure hunts taking place in towns, villages and cities across Britain, listed in alphabetical order by location. Once they have clicked on the location of their choice, a live stream from the camera team following those treasure hunters will be displayed.
To submit a riddle, users will be directed to a page that allows them to submit brief, abstract riddles relating to points of interest in their home town, village or city. Users will be able to submit as many as they like, and they will then go on to be assessed by the staff running the website for their suitability for use in the show. Those applying to the show will be directed to an application form where they will have to explain why they should be chosen as Treasure Hunters. If chosen, they will be contacted by the Treasure Hunters team, and a date for their treasure hunt will be arranged. On this day they will be given an i-phone, allowing them to access the riddles they need to solve from the website, and will be followed by a small camera crew who will be recording footage for the live stream and the highlights television show, which can be enjoyed by all sections of the audience on a weekly basis.
User walkthrough’s
Mark Edwards, 20, History student
“I have always been interested in the history of my home town and the surrounding area, so when I saw Treasure Hunters for the first time, I thought it would be great fun to take part. After watching the TV show I went on to the website to find out how to send in your own riddles. The website told me that ‘Treasure Hunters’ would be in my home town soon, so I decided to submit three riddles, the answer to each being an important historical location. Whilst I was on the website I decided to check out some of the previous episodes that I had missed.
From then on I would regularly visit the website to check out the live feed. The day came when a treasure hunt was due to take place in my town, and I eagerly watched the live feed to see if my riddles had been chosen. To my surprise, they had! It was great fun watching the contestants trying to get their heads around what I had written, and it was a great feeling when they finally cracked it.
I then waited to watch that week’s episode on television, and the treasure hunt that had used my riddles had been selected as one of the highlights to be broadcast. It was great to have something that I was a part of being shown on television. I still regularly watch the live feed on the website, and have a great time trying to decipher the riddles myself. And as I am not always able to watch the treasure hunts on the website, I make sure that I never miss the highlights show!”
Albert Watkins, 45, Librarian
“I have always enjoyed a challenge, and when I first saw Treasure Hunters on TV I thought it looked like great fun. I logged onto the website that night and submitted a riddle. I also decided to apply to be a Treasure Hunter. After filling out the form and providing my email address, I sent it off.
A week later I received an e-mail from the Treasure Hunters team saying that although my riddle had not been chosen, they would like to use my wife and I as treasure hunters on the show! A couple of weeks passed, during which time I would regularly check the website, watching the live stream and catching up on previous episodes, until the day finally came that we would be treasure hunters in our local village. A camera crew turned up at our house early in the morning, and followed us throughout the day as we tried to solve the riddles on the website using the i-phone they gave us. The whole day was fantastic fun, and it was strange but exciting to think that a large audience was watching us online!
After we had returned home The Treasure Hunters team informed us that we had been chosen to appear in the highlights episode which would be shown at the end of the week! I still regularly tune in to the show, and regularly visit the website to try and solve other people’s riddles, and have since submitted more of my own – no luck yet though!”
Initially this project is designed to run for a set period of time of 12 weeks, visiting 12 towns, villages and cities across Britain. Every week for 12 weeks the highlights show will be broadcast, with this being enough time to explore a wide variety of locations. If the project proves to be a success with high television ratings and a large enough percentage of viewers logging on to submit riddles and applying to take part themselves, then there is scope for future series.
Online strategy
Treasure hunters will be accompanied by an online marketing campaign that will see the project advertised across a number of different websites. The marketing will take place in three stages, the first being to appeal to the local people of the locations that Treasure Hunters will visit. Secondly, the campaign will move onto social networking sites to create a community of people who are interested in the project, and finally onto the Channel 4 website, where it will try and attract a larger audience for television.
Town, Cities and Villages that Treasure Hunters will visit will have local newspapers. Treasure Hunters will advertise on the websites of these local papers, as well as on local council websites. The project could also be advertised on the websites of local museums, and on sites which specialize in local knowledge or historical points of interest, as this will attract people with an interest in history. By marketing the project in these places, the project can appeal directly to the local people of the relevant towns and cities, and the Treasure Hunters target audience.
Social networking sites will play an important role in raising awareness for this project. Many people’s contacts on these sites will be people that they know locally. As Treasure Hunters requires people to partake who have local knowledge, it will be important for groups to be set up on social networking sites that bring together people from the various places that Treasure Hunters will visit. As more and more people join the groups they will be able to invite people that live locally, or who they think will be interested in the project. This will be an effective way of creating local interest in Treasure Hunters. Social networking sites such as Facebook could also have an online, simplified version of Treasure Hunters implemented into them, where member of the online community could challenge others to guess the answers to their riddles.
As Treasure Hunters is, in a sense, a puzzle game, it will be appropriate to advertise on puzzle and gaming websites, again appealing directly to the audience we are aiming for. The television show will be advertised on the Channel 4 website near the time of broadcast, to attract a wider audience.
Below is a visual representation of a possible online marketing strategy for ‘Treasure Hunters!’
After 7 seconds
The ‘Treasure Hunters’ audience will consist of 3 groups of people. The first group will be a casual audience who will watch the highlights show, and may also watch live ‘Treasure Hunts’ being streamed on the website. The second group will be a more dedicated audience, who will actively take part in the experience by submitting their own riddles to the Treasure Hunters website for use in the show. The third group will be people who wish to take part as Treasure Hunters, and will do so by applying on the website.
The entry point for most users will be the ‘Treasure Hunters’ website. After typing in the site into the internet address bar they will be greeted with the project homepage. From the homepage different buttons will direct the user to different areas of the site, such as a stream where they can watch current treasure hunts, or to part of the website dedicated to previous episodes of Treasure Hunters.
Those wishing to take part in the experience by entering their own riddles will need to visit the ‘Riddles’ section of the website. Users should be able to reach this stage in the website in around 7 seconds with 3 mouse clicks – once on the internet browser, one click to search the website, and one click on the ‘Riddles’ button on the homepage. Participants creating riddles for use on the show will need to apply some thought, and so are likely to sit down to take part on a weekend, or during a quiet evening, when their schedule may be free and they are able to carefully consider what they write.
Those wishing to take part as a ‘Treasure Hunter’ will need to click on the ‘apply’ button to be taken to an application form. Like anywhere else on the site, to get to the application form should take no more than 3 clicks.
After 7 minutes
After 7 minutes, casual users will be watching either live streams of current treasure hunts, or watching previous episodes of Treasure Hunters. The live streams will last the length of time that it takes for the Treasure Hunters to complete their task, which could be a number of hours, but the previous episodes will be 30 minutes long.
After 7 minutes, those who have chosen to will have entered riddle into the website. The riddles will be short, around 4 lines, and the user can submit as many as they like. They will then click on the ‘Home’ button to take them back to the homepage, from which they will be able to explore the rest of he website.
Users who have decided to apply to become a ‘treasure hunter’ will be in the process of filling out an application form. The form will be easy to fill out, and will simply ask potential participants why they feel should be the ones chosen to feature on the show.
After 7 days
Users who are not submitting riddles or planning on taking part as a treasure hunter will find value in checking the website occasionally throughout the week to watch live treasure hunts. The highlights show shown every week will be shown on Sunday nights, and aimed at the more casual viewer, the same audience that might visit the ‘Treasure Hunters’ website to watch some of the live streams, but not heavily partake. For this section of the audience, the experience will be spread across the internet and possibly television.
Those who have submitted a riddle will regularly check the website’s live streams to see if their riddle is being used by the ‘treasure hunters’. The ‘stickiness’ of this project is achieved through the fact that the audience are able to have a direct impact on the projects outcome. The audience that have submitted riddles will want to stay with the project, at least until they can see whether their work has had an impact. For this audience, their experience will be spread across the internet and television.
Those chosen to be treasure hunters in their area will spend a day as a treasure hunter being followed by a small camera crew. They will be given iphones to access the riddles left on the website, and will have to find the artifacts that the riddles refer to within a time limit. After their experience as a treasure hunter, they will be keen to watch themselves on the highlights show, shown at the weekend. For people who become ‘Treasure Hunters’ the experience will be spread over the internet, television and mobile phones.
Below is a chart to represent the flow of the ‘Treasure Hunters’ experience
