The Making of a San Francisco PR Dream
#SFBatkid’s Fairy Godmothers
SOLD OUT
The words appear in upper case bold on the Public Relations Society of America’s website. Four days before the San Francisco chapter’s first meeting of 2014 and seats are in high demand.
The reason — the speakers are a sought after duo: Patricia Wilson, Executive Director, Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area and Stefania Pomponi, Founder of Clever Girls Collective — two women who powered a campaign that put San Francisco in a spotlight so bright, you could see it from space — literally.
On November 15th, 2013, “Hooray for Batkid” was the message sent via Twitter from the International Space Station. Batkid would soon earn the distinction of being one in the top five social media moments of the year.
Five-year old Miles Scott — who has leukemia that’s currently in remission — was living out his magic wish as he raced down the streets of San Francisco to save the city from evil super villains. A city that for 24 hours — became Gotham City. And the whole world was watching.
“What happened that day — I call it a perfect storm,” Wilson told the PRSA audience. “The planets were aligned.”
In the wake of a government shutdown that hit tourism hard and a baseball team that wasn’t headed to the World Series, San Francisco may have needed a ‘feel good’ moment to embrace; but no one knew how many people would want to ride the wave.
(I remember) “Al Jazeera called — and even the Goodyear Blimp people. That’s when we knew it was big,” said Wilson. “We laughed and said who’s going to call next — the President — and then the White House called and I lost it.”
The President and First Lady put out tweets on a day of many firsts — including a first ever 6-second Vine Video from President Obama.
It was also the first time Make-A-Wish tweeted an event in real time. Twitter had just gone public and all eyes were on what was happening over the social channel as #SFBatkid started to trend out out of control.
Nearly 2 Billion Twitter Impressions
“I’m sure you’ve all had clients say — ‘we just want that to go viral — just make that go viral’,” said Pomponi — who heads up the social media agency that handled the social side of what became a global event — pro bono.
“We at Clever Girls Collective believe that going viral is not a strategy — it’s an outcome that can happen if you have amazing content to start with.”
And from action packed videos — including a reel of a Police Chief who could have won an Emmy — to funny and creative one liners spreading over social streams — there was plenty of rich content to carry over @PenguinSF, @SFWish and attach to #SFBatkid.
The agency used their network of more than 6,000 influencers to get the buzz going. Seven days leading up to the event, a highly scripted strategy was in place. But there was no way to predict everything that was about to happen.
Borrowing a line from the movie ‘Notting Hill’
Media requests poured in and the local Make-A-Wish chapter was challenged to keep up. Camera crews were hanging out in their lobby, Journalists were trying to reach them through LinkedIn. Then someone remembered the movie ‘Notting Hill’.
“You know the scene where Julia Roberts does the press junket,” said Wilson. (A staff member) walks into my office and asked — how do you feel about a press junket? So for two days straight we gave everybody 20 minutes at a time; and they all came.”
Leave your ego at the door
One might remember the sign that singer and philanthropist Bob Geldof hung on the door of the studio during the recording of “We are the World,” in 1985. Somehow that fits well in understanding the success of Batkid. So many elected officials, tech companies and celebrities responded with nothing but generosity.
It was never about making money according to Wilson.
“This Wish family is precious and loving and really didn’t want the spotlight and shied away from it. And there was something genuine about that,” she said.
“In Miles’ case — one of the choices we had for the family — we offered to come to their home (and) — I think I can do something in an amusement park — and then I just threw out the bold statement — I can turn San Francisco into Gotham City. That’s the one that resonated. And then I had to figure out how to do that.”
The cast of responders was endless. The Police Chief, the Mayor, Comcast SportsNet (which she said provided a pool camera and watermark-free satellite feed), Apple (delivering staff to assist media), and just about every local social enterprise — Livefyre, Twitter, Flickr, Foursquare, Simply Measured — just to name a few — all donated time and resources.
Both the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner ran special “Gotham” editions. The San Francisco Giants, the Dodgers, the 49ers, Senator Dianne Feinstein, numerous celebrities —including Ben Affleck, Josh Groban and Enrique Iglesias — all tweeted out warm wishes. Even local culinary artisans TCHO Chocolate delivered a mouth watering key to the city for Miles. And #SFBatkid was on every television network including CNN.
There were 18,000 news clips according to Make-A-Wish. The traditional media value alone is estimated to be over $30 million. The organization said they have no way to tally all of the in-kind donations.
“It was truly an honor to be even a little bit associated with what happened that day,” said Pomoni.
My original goal was to have 200 volunteers working this (when the idea surfaced) added Wilson who paused as the discussion began to wind down.
“I think we overshot that a little bit.”
