Following John Oliver's successful, albeit "comically aggressive," campaign for Pūteketeke to be crowned as the "Bird of the Century," he is back to the saddle championing a good cause: rallying support for Metal Bird's new sculpture product of the iconic bird.
The New Zealand business sells the sculptures on its website, with 30% of the proceeds going directly to the conservation efforts of Forest and Bird, the organization behind the bird vote.
John Oliver Inspires Support for Bird Conservation
In a recent episode of Oliver's show, he promoted the sculpted product, saying, "If you want one, with or without me on it, you can order a sculpture at this website right here. We've actually got one for everybody in our audience."
Oliver's honeyed words worked as effectively as they did with the "Bird of the Century's" campaign because, within just 15 minutes of the episode broadcasting to its American viewers, the Metal Bird website got overwhelmed with orders.
"We sat there, it went to air. We're looking at 15 people on our website in the States. Then there's 50. Then there's 200. Then there's 600," Metal Bird creator Phil Walters told Newshub.
John Oliver's Successful 'Bird of the Century' Campaign
In addition to that, there had been a huge boost to direct donations towards Forest and Bird's efforts. In a statement, the organization's CEO, Nicola Toki, shared that they have received over $600,000 in contributions to this year's efforts thanks to Oliver's prior movement to elect Pūteketeke in the bird vote.
The talk show host's efforts to boost his bird bet's votes included buying ads across New Zealand, nicknaming the Pūteketeke as the "Lord of the WIngs." On top of that, he also urged people from cities all over the world to vote for the bird using billboards.
He even made an appearance on Jimmy Fallon's "The Tonight Show" wearing a Pūteketeke costume.
In total, Oliver has accumulated a whopping 350,000 votes from over 195 countries, completely outclassing the 2021 record for the most votes cast on one bird with a mere 56,733.
Thanks to the comedian, this year's bird election also experienced the most amount of votes since its inception in 2005, cementing Oliver's significance to this wonderful bird vote odyssey.
