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Blogvent Day 6 - American woman hit for six by The Ashes

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As the second Ashes test reaches its conclusion in Adelaide, we use the sixth door on our Blogvent calendar to showcase the wonderful Ashley Kerekes from Massachussets, USA, whose social standing has been hit for six since cricket suddenly took over her life.

22-year-old Kerekes, whose Twitter name is @TheAshes, had been bombarded by messages from cricket fans the world over wanting to keep track of developments in the biennial England vs Australia cricket series. Things reached fever pitch as the first test got underway at the tail end of last month, prompting Kerekes to post I AM NOT A FREAKING CRICKET MATCH on her account.

Once the world’s media got their hands on that one, @TheAshes gained as much notoriety as the series itself. From 300 followers to just over 13,000 as of this morning, the account makes for wonderful reading, as @TheAshes gets to grips with the nuances of cricket via Twitter.

“What the hell is a wicket?”, “The Second Test starts on Friday. I’ll still need to work out exactly what a Test is though...” and “Is there really a "silly mid" on?” are just some of the tweets posted in the last week.

Kerekes has even produced t-shirts with her now famous ‘I am not a freaking cricket match’ catchphrase and the #gettheashestotheashes campaign looks set to come to fruition as brands tap into opportunistic PR and marketing stunts.

Qantas vowed to fly @TheAshes to Australia through their Twitter account: “Qantas wants to see @theashes in Australia. We'll fly her from New York to Australia for the Ashes! #gettheashestotheashes”, while Vodafone has offered to buy tickets and a phone from which she can tweet her experiences: “We want to #gettheashestotheashes so if @theashes can get over here we'll pony up #theashes tickets & a phone so she can tweet.”

As official sponsors of the England and Australian squads look to reap the rewards of their scheduled activation plans, a 22-year-old babysitting non-cricket fan from America has become the unexpected and celebrated ambassador for The Ashes series, proving once again that social media is less about campaigns and more about old-fashioned engagement and opportunism.

There is undoubtedly much more to run on this story. As England look on course for victory in the second test currently taking place in Adelaide, Kerekes has three more Tests in which to brush up on her cricket knowledge and the entire cricketing world watching her every move...

 

 

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