Success Stories

You may have seen Havard Rugland kicking a 60-yard field goal on Good Morning America. Perhaps you saw NBC Nightly News when he booted a football into the arms of a man in a moving boat. Or maybe you read the 1,200-word profile about him in The New York Times.

Havard received so much press around the New Year that you likely know about the 28-year-old Norwegian amateur-soccer-player-turned-football sensation. But do you know that his story caught fire through PRWeb?

When Havard posted a video of his jaw-dropping kicking exploits to YouTube in September, it averaged an impressive 5,000 views per day. That’s good, but no viral sensation. Then, professional kicking coach Michael Husted, who began training Havard in December, suggested to media consultant Craig Kasnoff that they put out a press release. They turned to PRWeb, the world’s #1 news release service. They used PRWeb three times between December 17th and December 23rd. The first release was when Michael began training Havard. The second was when Havard signed with agent Jill McBride Baxter. The third was the video tallied 100,000 views in a single day.

“When we sent out those PRWeb press releases, the video went viral,” Michael says. “In weeks, it went from 490,000 views to closer to 2.5 million views as of today.”

“It’s impressive to see a media tool deliver a response like this,” says Craig, a 16-year journalism veteran. “It’s no coincidence that after we published the press releases about Havard, with information nobody else had, the major media outlets start picking the story up. The PRWeb press releases really moved Havard’s video views, and his story, to a whole new level.”

It doesn’t look like Havard’s story will die anytime soon. He has a workout with the New York Jets scheduled for the spring and has received inquiries from several other NFL teams. As the story progresses, PRWeb will be the primary tool used to maintain its momentum.

“I firmly believe that if we had gone about our normal business, he wouldn’t have received the attention he’s received,” Michael says. “We hope to keep leveraging PRWeb for this story as it continues to grow – ideally, towards a happy ending.”