Whowroteit? Mystery advertisement has readers and netizens fascinated
Tracks appear to lead back to a Russian businessman with plenty of money to spare
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By Kristiina Markkanen
A large full-page personal advertisement published in Helsingin Sanomat on page A7 last Sunday has attracted increasing interest both among readers and the media.
In the unusual advertisement, a man was looking for a blonde woman with a ponytail whom he had seen at a restaurant in Helsinki a month ago, asking her to send him an e-mail in English to the address lostyouinhelsinki@gmail.com.
A piece of news relating to the advertisement was published on hs.fi, the online edition of Helsingin Sanomat, at 5.00 sharp on Sunday morning, and the first reader's comment was received at 05.11.
The commentators were wondering whether or not the advertisement was genuine. Most of them believed that the advert had been placed by a major company, such as Google, Fonecta, or even Helsingin Sanomat itself, and that it was a particularly cunning piece of guerrilla marketing that would only be unmasked later, after it had done its job.
One important consideration was the sheer cost of the exercise: a full-page ad in Helsingin Sanomat, plus VAT and so on, will set you back in the region of EUR 20,000, which is an awful lot of money for most "desperately seeking" candidates.
However, Product Manager Maarit Lamminmäki from Helsingin Sanomat confirmed that the advertiser is a private individual.
Nevertheless, Lamminmäki could not rule out the possibility of some kind of promotional gimmick.
Laura Helminen, the producer of the weekend supplement of the free newspaper Metro, managed to come into contact with the person who had placed the advertisement. In his answer, written in somewhat clumsy English, the man had insisted that the advert is about ”the real thing”.
On its website, the Tampere-based newspaper Aamulehti searched for clues from the front page of Sunday’s Helsingin Sanomat, which carried directory service company Fonecta’s 1/1 page advertisement for ”a national database”.
”The data should be updated on Fonecta’s website on www.02.fi. That page also links to a restaurant guide behind a menu button. If you click that, an introduction to Restaurant Mecca pops up - of course”, Aamulehti noticed.
Fonecta have also denied any involvement.
Many commentators assumed that the advertisement was promoting the new domestic TV show Kadonneen jäljillä (”Locating Missing Persons”) produced by MTV3, a Finnish commercial television station. The channel flatly denies the charge.
Restaurant Mecca, mentioned in the advertisement, is not open on Sundays, but both director Marko Hurme and bartender Ville Hyytiäinen were present on Sunday in order to answer the questions posed by a large number of journalists.
Hyytiäinen was working in the bar on Saturday February 21st around 22.00 - the time which was mentioned in the ad.
Restaurant Mecca also denied being the advertiser in question.
Hyytiäinen believed that the drink mentioned in the ad was not Kir Royal but most likely Pimp my Champagne, the favourite tipple at the restaurant.
According to the director, the restaurant does not have surveillance cameras, nor does the staff have any idea of the clients who were at the restaurant on Saturday night a month ago.
By Sunday night, the number of online comments on the hs.fi portal was already well over 250, but the identity of the advertiser remained a mystery.
The commentators can be divided into two groups: those who suspect that the ad is not genuine and those who want to believe that it is sincere.
Another development was a heated to-and-fro debate on ponytails. Many writers were wondering what kind of woman would go to a bar wearing a ponytail.
Amateur detectives and IT enthusiasts have been trying to trace the man on the Internet, and two of them, acting under the anonymous user identities of Xaeron and Sherlock Holmes, have come to the conclusion that the individual is a Russian businessman.
They used subterfuge and contacted the gmail.com operator - search engine giant Google - claiming they had absent-mindedly forgotten their password and the security question. The reply they got from Google narrowed things down to someone with a Russian background.
Whatever the truth, the mystery man obviously does not suffer from a shortage of means, if he can shell out twenty thousand euros to find the woman of his dreams.
The media sales unit of Helsingin Sanomat does not reveal the names of customers, as all customer relations are confidential, says Marketing Director Caroline Lilius.
In all probability, the detective work used to get as far as the Russian identity is not illegal, provided that no intrusion into the information system - in this case the e-mail system - has taken place, says Doctor of Laws Ari-Matti Nuutila.
Helsingin Sanomat / Edited from an article first published in print 30.3.2009
KRISTIINA MARKKANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
kristiina.markkanen@hs.fi
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| 31.3.2009 - THIS WEEK |
 Whowroteit? Mystery advertisement has readers and netizens fascinated |
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