Vancouver-based amusement park Playland has initiated a scavenger hunt, asking consumers to search for cameras dotted across areas of British Columbia until the end of the summer.

Upon reviewing the camera’s video memory, finders will see footage of the camera flying off of the park’s rollercoasters and landing on treetops, statues and street signs.

The scavenger hunt, created by Playland’s agency Rethink, is meant to be an extension of the brand’s TV spot, which aired in June and July on CTV, Global, and OMNI (media planning was handled in-house). The commercial always ended with the camera flying through the air but never showed where it landed, says Cameron Walker, account director, Rethink.

“We wanted to create a discovery experience around the cameras that get lost at the end of the TV spot and continue that into a real-world scenario,” he says, adding that the park wanted to go beyond traditional print and broadcast media it usually relies on, and expand the campaign into the experiential and social media space.

Walker hopes that the stunt will better target the amusement park’s predominantly teen audience, and he believes that they will most likely share the contest and their own amusement park experiences through social networking sites.

The campaign (which covers Burnaby, Richmond and downtown Vancouver) includes a series of five additional videos which did not air on TV but will be released periodically online, each shot from the point of view of a different group of friends who have visited Playland. Amusement park-goers can also follow the search on Twitter through the hashtag #lostcameraYVR.

Clues to the cameras’ locations are being kept on the brand’s microsite, and those who find them can take the camera home as well as go to the site to redeem a full-day ticket to Playland and be entered into a draw for tickets to the Pacific National Exhibition.