Underestimating the reach of social media has cost a Copenhagen business owner more than 33,000 kroner, as a picture of his son went viral.
It started off as a bit of fun when Allan Hamurkesen, the owner of the bike shop A-H Cykler on Istedgade, took his son Victor to work with him on Saturday morning.
He posted a photo of Victor standing in the middle of a tower of bike tyres and vowed to give him one krone to spend in the toy shop BR for every like the photo received between 10.30 am and 2 pm. But the photo went viral and by 2 pm had accumulated 33,668 likes.
Hamurksen told TV2 that the response was greater than he could have imagined.
“The company’s page has 6,000 likes, so I reckoned on it getting about 1,000 likes,” he said.
“So it’s not something I’ll be doing again next Saturday. It went a bit crazy – it also took all our attention at the shop, we’ve not been able to concentrate on doing anything.”
As the likes poured in commenters started to joke about the shopping trip Victor was in store for. “He’ll need to rent a van for that trip to BR,” one wrote.
Sharing with charity
Hamurksen didn’t shy away from the outlay, but wrote in a follow-up post that the family had decided to give half of the money to the Knæk Cancer charity.
“Victor will never need 33,668 kroner’s worth of toys so half of the amount will be donated,” he said.
“Victor therefore has 16,834 kroner and will get a trip to BR.”
Hamurksen insists that the exploit wasn’t a publicity stunt.
“It was just a fun idea, but it turned into something we never expected,” he said.
“It was never an advertising stunt for A-H Cykler.”
