Walmart has made it official – Kodiak has won a visit from Miami singer Pitbull, and he may be coming here in less than two weeks.
Sarah Spencer, the director of corporate communications for Walmart in Bentonville, Arkansas, phoned KMXT with the news this morning:
“Kodiak, Alaska is the winner of the Walmart and Sheets Facebook contest, which means Mr. Worldwide will make his first trip to Alaska at the end of the month.”
Spencer said July 30th is the most likely date for Pitbull’s appearance, as it fits in with his current worldwide tour. The singer, whose real name is Armando Perez, said in a Youtube video he’s looking forward to the visit:
“This is Mr. Worldwide. I’m over in Madrid, Spain, right now, rocking Rio. There’s a huge Walmart/Sheets Energy Strips campaign going on, and I heard Kodiak, Alaska, has the most likes. So I said okay, great, this sound really good. You got to understand I’d go anywhere in the world for my fans. With that said, enjoy, and follow me to Kodiak. Dale’.”
Kodiak won the contest by racking up over 72,000 likes on Walmart’s Facebook page, easily outpacing any other store in the country. A lot of the attention was spurred on by Boston Phoenix columnist David Thorpe, who latched on to the idea of sending Pitbull to the most remote Walmart he could find, which turned out to be Kodiak.
But instead of crying foul over the hijacking of the contest, Pitbull embraced the “Exile Pitbull” movement on Twitter and turned the tables on Thorpe, inviting him to join him here in Kodiak. Thorpe, in his column, has agreed to come.
Spencer said exactly what Pitbull will do here in Kodiak is still up in the air – it could be a few songs at the local Walmart, or more:
“Well, we’re still thinking everything through, and we hope to have the exact date and what the appearance details will looking like in the coming days. I’m not going to confirm anything right now. We’re going to hold onto the suspense as we try to nail everything down, but definitely more to come.”
Pitbull currently has a Top 40 hit with “Back in Time,” a song from the new Men in Black 3 movie.
Jay Barrett is the news director at KMXT in Kodiak.
