GRAYSON OZIAS IV Fortune Found! The LEVI’S® Brand Announces the $100,000 Winner

SAN FRANCISCO (November 24, 2009) – The Levi’s® brand today announced that the $100,000 Grayson Ozias IV Fortune has been found. Laura E. Hall of Dallas, Texas cracked the final cipher and has officially inherited Grayson’s fortune. Hall was the first contestant to solve the final puzzle and was flown to Virgin, Utah to dig up the box that contained $100,000.

“The story of Grayson Ozias IV has captivated Levi’s® fans and gamers in both online communities and the real world. The interactive and community-based elements of this game helped create a really unique and fun experience,” commented an emotional Hall when she was announced as the winner. “Even though the game is over, I’ve made plans to stay in touch with lots of the people I met and connected with through Facebook, Twitter and events along the way. I’d like to thank Levi’s® for coming up with such a cool experience and making it all possible.”

Thousands of gamers actively participated in the G.O. IV Fortune challenge, while many others followed the journey online. Many players also engaged in “real world” challenges around the country—one player drove more than three hours in the rain to participate, one player created their own response blog (“where is the man in the hat?”- www.whereisthemaninthehat.tumblr.com) to house live footage of gamers’ adventures, photos and original songs written about the game, and one dedicated fan even got a “Go Forth” tattoo.

“Our ‘Go Forth Challenge’ was intended to be a fun and engaging way to bring our Go Forth campaign to life and engage consumers in the spirit of the campaign and the Levi’s® brand,” said Doug Sweeny, vice president of Levi’s Strauss Americas. “We’re excited that thousands of people enjoyed participating in our interactive digital scavenger hunt and congratulate Laura on her exciting win.”

The Levi’s® brand also recently announced charity: water as the winning charity of its recent G.O. IV Fortune $100,000 green charity giveaway. Beginning in mid-October, G.O. IV Fortune players nominated hundreds of charitable organizations with a commitment to sustainability and the environment. The list was narrowed down to ten finalists, and thousands of gamers voted for the charity they felt best embodied the Levi’s® brand’s pioneering spirit and rich legacy of promoting sustainability. Last week, charity: water was announced as America’s choice.

About the Grayson Ozias IV Fortune Challenge
Launched October 5, 2009, at levi.com/goforth, the interactive challenge invited participants to solve mysteries as they unfolded, keeping up with other players or going for the gold themselves with the final cipher. It was a mystery wrapped in a puzzle and an adventure across our country. The narrative behind the challenge followed Grayson Ozias IV—a fictional character based on the Levi’s® brand’s pioneering and innovative spirit—on his adventures across America until his 1896 disappearance into the wilderness, after hiding his considerable fortune. The game’s scavenger hunt led to many cities and towns across America, each a part of Grayson’s journey, and tasked players to step out from behind their computers to follow the hunt as it led some lucky player into the real world directly to the buried treasure. Each task at each city or town triggered the next clue in the challenge.

The ongoing puzzle, an elaborate cryptogram, required a combination of knowledge, skill and determination. The players received clues and pieces of the puzzle from launch to finish. The first player to crack the final puzzle and send it to the Levi’s® game team won Grayson Ozias’s buried fortune. Players also won other great prizes throughout the journey.

The hidden fortune is the third expedition from Levi’s® Go Forth campaign, first launched July 1, 2009. The campaign has been supported heavily in digital social media (Facebook, Twitter), online via rich media and offline (ESPN The Magazine). The first two expeditions—the New Declaration and the New Americans—were an homage to today’s America.