SF Giants gets Involved with Batkid’s Day to Remember

Post by Chelsea Crist

San Francisco Helps Miles' Wish To Be A Superhero Come True — San Francisco Helps Miles’ Wish To Be A Superhero Come True

As the Make-A-Wish Foundation production in San Francisco gained publicity through different social media outlets, many organizations saw this as a great opportunity to get involved. Miles’ simple wish of being Batkid for a day was completely transformed. The San Francisco Giants jumped on the bandwagon as well, and got involved with making Mile’s wish come true.

One of Miles’ tasks as Batkid required him to rescue the Giant’s mascot, Lou Seal, from the captivity of the evil Penguin. Miles then continued to run the bases in the AT&T stadium while being cheered on by thousands of fans. The baseball fun was concluded with Miles receiving a large assortment of Giants souvenirs. Staci Slaughter, the Senior vice president of communications stated, “It was like the World Series.”

The San Francisco Giants saw this event as a public relations and marketing opportunity of a lifetime. By assisting in raising awareness about the Make-A-Wish foundation and supporting a 5 year-old that has battled leukemia, they increased donations for the organization and generated positive associations to a great cause for themselves. The Giants involvement in this special day for Batkid brought Make-A-Wish supporters into AT&T park to cheer on Batkid, gained supporters and fans for the SF Giants and tied the Giants to all of the positive media surrounding the event. In addition, the Giants participated in the Twitter publicity of the event which resulted in other sports teams, even Giants rivals, voicing their support for this great cause.

The theory or model that the San Francisco Giants public relations efforts are best described by is the Diffusion of Innovation Theory. The quick, widespread adoption of the Make-A-Wish story, and the Giants’ decision to get involved and support the efforts perfectly fits into the definitely of Diffusion of Innovation. The five steps for this theory include:

Awareness—exposure to the idea;

Interest—idea has to arouse the individual;

Evaluation—individual must consider idea to be useful;

Trial—individual tries out the idea on others;

and Adoption—final acceptance of the idea or behavior.

This production of granting Miles’ wish began with the innovators—the Make-A-Wish foundation themselves. Once the early adopters, such as Clever Girls Collective decided to take on this project and create publicity, supporters began to exponentially grow. The San Francisco Giants saw the potential with this story, and became an early adopter of this opportunity.

Another aspect of the Diffusion of Innovation is the specific process in which the innovation is communicated through different channels of social media, and into different sectors of our social system. The Giants committed to support Miles’ wish, and channeled money, thought, and time into all aspects of this magical day. They provided their mascot, Lou Seal, to be apart of the production, hosted many fans in the stadium to watch Batkid run the bases inside AT&T Park, and generated specific signs for fans to hold up reading, “San Francisco Giants Love Batkid.” In addition, the SF Giants tweeted continuously throughout the say, and posted on their website about their involvement.

I would state that the decision to get involved with the Make-A-Wish foundation and Batkid’s big day is a positive public relations opportunity that they are fortunate to have adopted earlier than others. The involvement got the public talking about their team in a positive way. This will be a production that people will talk about for quite some time, and every time “the day that Batkid saved San Francisco” is discussed, the San Francisco Giant’s will be in correlation.

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