Author: ccrist@uoregon.edu

Mayor Edward M. Lee’s Contribution to Make-A-Wish and Batkid

Post by Melissa Iarocci

The name Batkid has swept the nation thanks to the public relations involved with the nonprofit Make-A-Wish Foundation. The Make-A-Wish Foundation originally hoped for around a few hundred or so participants to respond to Miles’ wish on November 15th, 2013. However the call for help went viral and soon enough Make-A-Wish was getting offers from thousands of people within days. Once the execution of communicating ways to get involved in this unique wish grant was taken care of, the rest was up to the public. The audience was reached and the effect was drastic.

Mayor Ed Lee of San Francisco made a conscious effort to actively partake in this wish. People were so excited about the wish because it had so many different aspects of San Francisco in it. Mayor Ed Lee chose to partake in this public cause, not only for his city, but also for the reinforcement of what the wish really represented to the boy.  Miles Scott is a five year old who has battled leukemia for almost his entire life. By participating in this wish the mayor helped Miles live out a childhood dream and inadvertently helped make a public statement that Miles was not only fighting crime; he was fighting for his life. This message is powerful and the mayor’s support further fueled the growing numbers of passionate participants.

However, the only problem with the growing number of participants and crowds were the growing funds required to make this wish possible. The massive crowds grew to approximately 20,000 and the city used an estimated $105,000 in funds set aside for special events for Miles’ wish. The bulk of this money helped pay for the special event held outside “Gotham” City Hall where Batkid was honored by the mayor for saving the city from doom. This wish greatly exceeded the amount of a typical wish grant, but the mayor along with the faithful San Francisco community members assisted with the funds.

The Mayor’s involvement in the Batkid Make-A-Wish project most closely relates to the Social Exchange Theory. The Social Exchange Theory revolves around the general concept that people want to keep their costs low and their rewards high. It states that people factor in cost/benefit analysis of their specific behavior before acting. The Mayor specifically chose to participate and help fund the Batkid wish because he believed supporting Miles would benefit a good cause and would also benefit the San Francisco community.

He could not have been more correct in his analysis. The mayor made an individual decision that widely benefited his own image as well as the city of San Francisco’s image. Once the story of Batkid went global, the public relations of every organization that helped create this experience for Miles received immense amounts of recognition through social media. All who put in the effort and came together to make Miles’ wish come true received continual benefits and acknowledgments. So in a sense, the benefits continued to outweigh the costs in this situation.

However, some people did not agree with this cost/benefit decision made by the mayor. Few felt that the money could have been distributed to other less fortunate kids. In an interview Christine Falvey, communications director for Mayor Ed Lee, seems untroubled by the few who did not feel the benefits outweighed the costs. She states, “It was a very successful event. We were honored to be part of it,” she said. “Miles gave to us more than we gave to him.”

This example of Mayor Ed Lee’s involvement with the campaign directly relates to Make-A-Wish Foundation’s PR process. Loads of research was done to figure out what needed to be done to make this wish come true. A plan was set into action of how the wish was going to take place. And finally, the communication and execution of the wish itself is where this campaign really took off. Social media and the support of imperative role models, such as Mayor Ed Lee, got the word out and got people excited.  There is only so much the public relations of a company can do. The campaign reached out to an audience and hoped for a positive response. Make-A-Wish and the Batkid campaign are a leading example of how PR can connect to an audience and receive more benefits and recognition than conceivably imaginable.

BatKid Saves Gotham City #TwitterEdition

Post by Riley Crosgrove

On November 15th, 2013, all of San Francisco awaited the Make-a-Wish foundation’s grant of Miles Scott’s wish to become a superhero. While thousands of people gathered in San Francisco to watch Batkid in action, hundreds of thousands more followed social media, Twitter specifically, throughout the day to get updates. Hashtags such as #BatKidSF and #BatKid generated over 1.7 billion impressions. Tweeters included pictures with these Hashtags to allow users all over the world to see what was happening. Over 6,000 of these Hashtags were sent to San Francisco influences to ensure that it started trending early. Leading up to November 15th, news had rapidly spread throughout the nation of the plan to transform San Francisco into “Gotham City”. While most were interested initially, the repetition used by Twitter and other social media networks were enough to ensure that this would an event that everybody would want to keep up with. On November 15th, Batkid was the most popular topic on Twitter, generating over 50,000 tweets per hour.

Twitter also used celebrities and highly credible spokespeople to increase involvement and interest with this event. Encouraging tweets were sent throughout the nation to Batkid from journalists, politicians, and pundits in Washington D.C. Batkid even received an official thank you from the U.S. Justice Department. Many celebrities got involved through Twitter, including Britney Spears, Enrique Iglesias, the San Francisco 49ers, The Golden Gate Warriors, and an astronaut at the International Space Station. Ben Afflect claimed that he could never live up to such a performance, and the President of the United States tweeted his first vine wishing Miles luck. Twitter also created a @SFWish account, as well as @PenguinSF, an account that the villain used to mock tweet at Miles. With the use of Twitter, people throughout the nation were able to get involved, stay updated, and follow the successes of the day.

While it was easy for San Francisco residents to get involved and stay updated with the Make-a-Wish foundation’s event, Twitter allowed people all over the globe to stay up to date. While Miles embarked on his journey to save Gotham City, San Francisco paused. Thousands of volunteers dedicated their day to help the Make-a-Wish Foundation, people left their offices to watch the action, and the city temporarily unified behind the cause of making Miles’ dream come true. Those attending the event used Twitter and other forms of social media constantly, allowing the rest of the nation to stop, pause, and unify as well. Twitter newsfeeds were filled with the repetition of BatKid, offering constant updates from viewers and encouragement from all. Across the Internet, BatKid was hard to miss. Through the help of the thousands of Twitter users cheering on Miles, our nation as a whole became part of the #SFBatkid community.

The Elaboration and Likelihood theory is structured around the idea that people can process and evaluate a message through a “peripheral route”. Most ideas are processed by people through a “central route”, which allows them to be aware and actively think about a message. It is valuable for people to take a “peripheral” route when they are not interested in the message, don’t have the ability to evaluate a message with an understanding and open mind, or when they simply do not have the time to actively process a message through a “central route”. A “peripheral” route depicts how people are influenced by repetition of a message, highly credible spokespeople, and tangible rewards. If somebody is not interested in a certain idea or message, through a “peripheral route”, the message will be displayed to him or her in a way in which they become interested. Through the example of repetition, Twitter illustrates the Elaboration and Likelihood theory. Twitter is a “peripheral route” to getting people to pay attention to the Make-a-wish foundation’s granting of Mile Scott’s wish of becoming a superhero.

The Make-a-Wish Foundation needed to use public relations in order to spread the world across the nation of Miles Scott’s dream to become a super hero. Twitter is an example of public relations in practice related to #Batkid. Through the communication process of PR, a beneficial relationship was formed between the Make-a-Wish Foundation and Twitter. Through this, Twitter was able to effectively communicate and provide excellent PR for the campaign. Twitter helped to manage the way that communication about this event was spread from the Make-a-Wish foundation to the San Francisco community and the United States as a whole. Twitter communicated the details of this event throughout the nation, especially with the repetition of Hashtags such as #BatKid and #BatKidSF. With the help of thousands, in person and online, the Make-a-Wish foundation was able to make Miles Scott’s dream of becoming a super hero come true as he took the streets of San Francisco and successfully saved Gotham City.

  • Delreal, Jose. “Pols, Pundits cheer BatKid on Twitter .”Politico . (11-15-2013): n. page. Print. <http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/batkid-san-francisco-twitter-99935.html
  • Larson, Selena . “3 Things San Francisco’s #BatKid Teaches us About Twitter.” ReadWrite. n. page. Print. <http://readwrite.com/2013/11/15/three-things-san-francisco-batkid-teaches-us-about-twitter
  • Marshall, Jack. “Inside the Plan that helped Batkid win Twitter .” DigiDay. 20 11 2013: n. page. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. <http://digiday.com/agencies/social-media-batkid/>.

Obama Cheers on Make-a-Wish “Batkid”

Post by Ally Anderson
On November 13th, 2013, five-year old leukemia patient Miles Scott was granted a wish. He would spend the day as Bat Kid and save the city of Gotham (a transformed San Francisco) from the villains who tried to destroy the city. However, with a wish that attracted over 20,000 San Francisco residents and was tweeted in 117 countries around the world, many knew this wish was one that would touch the hearts of even the hardest to reach, including none other than the President of the United States.

The White House and President Obama himself made sure to make Miles Scotts wish an extra special one. Using the social media app known as Vine, the President recorded the video “President Obama has a special message for #SFBatKid” saying, “Way to go, Miles. Way to save Gotham.” This vine is the first one that the White House has featured the President himself, causing the six second video to be a very big deal. This message of support from the President follows the Public Relations theory called the Social Exchange Theory.

The Social Exchange theory involves a cost/benefit analysis to predict decisions/behavior; people makes their decisions to keep costs low and benefits high. In this case, President Obama used the low cost of taking very little time out of his schedule to film the six second video, but received high rewards with the public’s very positive response to the video. The White House took into account the costs of taking time out of the Presidents extremely busy schedule to take that extra personal step and have the President himself congratulate Bat Kid. The benefits from this decision to use the President caused immense social media response with over 7,000 re-tweets and over 4,000 favorites on the official White House Twitter page.

This example represents PR because of how the public perceived the President after viewing the video. The public saw President Obama as a much more personable public figure and a more of a regular person cheering on Miles Scott as Bat Kid. The Vine received such a huge social media response and was a very positive PR decision for the President and the White House. However, according to The Caucus, a political blog counterpart for The New York Times, not all responses to the video were positive, such as one comment saying, “You need to get off Vine and fix our country.” Yet, regardless of whether one is an Obama fan or not, there was no doubt most of the country and other parts of the world all came together to give Miles Scott the most unforgettable day of his life.

  • “President Obama Thanks ‘Batkid’”: Yahoo News
  • “Obama has a #BatKid signal”: CNN- “Political Ticker” “Miles’ Wish to be Batkid” Make-a-Wish Greater Bay Area
  • Link to Obamas Vine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_stosqMBa9s

Clever Girls Collective Help Batkid Save the Day

Post by Bridget Egan

A few weeks before Make-A-Wish’s transformation of San Francisco into Gotham CIty, Stefania Pomponi read about the upcoming event on a local SF blog. Pomponi is the co-founder of the California company: Clever Girls Collective. Clever Girls Collective is a content and social media agency that, lead by Pomponi, took the reigns on running all things social media for Miles’ event. Within a blink of an eye, Pomponi and her team had come up with a plan to help make the campaign go viral. They collaborated with Twitter and secured different handles including: @SFWish where all the internet could find out all the details about the event and @PenguinSF so Batkid’s nemesis could live tweet throughout the day. Pomponi also implemented adding #SFbatkid to everything on social media regarding the event. Clever Girls Collective works with different social media platforms, such as Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, and Facbook. For Batkid, they decided to focus almost solely on Twitter and a small amount on Facebook. The agency used their network of more than 6,000 paid influencers; having them behave as “social media food soldiers” and get the buzz going. The company’s network of influences are usually paid for their participation, however, for pro bono campaigns (such as Batkid) it is strictly voluntary to take part. For this event, the voluntary participation was through the roof. The agency’s last key element to their plan was to have a twitter chat begin the morning of the event.  Twitter chat is made up of a pre-arranged hashtag used to link tweets together in order to create a type of virtual conversation. Impressively, #SFBatkid was trending before the chat was even created. The agency had two members of their staff follow Miles around and document his day through the @SFWish account. With the help of other agencies, Clever Girls Collective worked to keep the best #SFBatkid tweets surfaced.

Between the time Clever Girls Collective began working to two weeks after, when the event took place, there were an astonishing 1.7 billion Twitter impressions and 600,000 tweets. The spike in interest towards Make-A-Wish caused their site to crash due to receiving 1,000 hits per second at one point in time.

Make-A-Wish stated that they rarely have the opportunity to involve the public in their granting of  wishes, but what happened in San Francisco was well beyond anything they’d seen before. They had originally hoped that around 200-300 people would show up at city hall to watch Miles receive his key to the city. However, thanks to social media and Clever Girls Collective, the crowd was measured to be around 20,000. This looks to be just the beginning of the relationship between Clever Girls Collective and Make-A-Wish, whom hope to collaborate on many campaigns in the future. When commenting on Make-A-Wish’s take on   the social media reaction to the event, Pompini stated,

The Uses and Gratification theory is structured around the idea that people thoughtfully decide and use distinct channels of media in order to appease varying needs. Although this theory displays that media does have a limited effect on users; being that individuals are able to exercise control and choice over media, Clever Girls Collective works to control the users’ control. Just as people are able to understand humans reasoning for using media, this type of agency is also aware and uses that knowledge to their advantage. With Uses & Gratifications, which involves what people do with media, Clever Girls Collective strategically used Twitter because they believed it was best equipped to get word out and gain participation in Make-A-Wish’s Batkid event.

According to PRSA.org, public relations is: “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics”. Public relations involves a communication process between, and bringing together of,  an organization and the public. Make-A-Wish needed the help of Collective Girls Collective to expand publicity of Batkid through social media channels. Despite doing this pro bono, Collective Girls Collective gained a huge amount of publicity and interest towards their company by helping with this event. At the same time, they were able to help create what is highly likely to be one of the most memorable days of Miles Scott’s life, as well as bring smiles to  the faces of nearly all the internet world on November 15th.

  • “What Is Public Relations?” PR Definition: PRSA Official Statement. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2013.
  •  “Inside The Social Media Strategy That Made Batkid Go Viral | Co.Exist | Ideas Impact.” Co.Exist. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2013.
  • “Clever Girls Collective | Welcome!” Clever Girls Collective Home Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2013.
  • Marshall, Jack. “Inside the Plan That Helped Batkid Win Twitter.” Digiday.com. N.p., 20 Nov. 2013. Web. 05 Dec. 2013.

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

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.