#ShareYourEars - Make-a-Wish & Disney

#ShareYourEars...

Make a Wish and Disney have been granting the wishes of children with life threatening conditions for more than 35 years. Every year, nearly 8000 Disney-related wishes are granted for young children, whether that be on their Disney cruises, Disney theme parks, visiting the TV and movie sets or meeting the characters. Disney is the most popular request made by children at Make-A-Wish and together they have created magical memories for many young children. 

In celebration of the Disneyland Resort Diamond Anniversary, from January 29 until March 14th the social media campaign #ShareYourEars ran for Make-A-Wish and Disney. Disney announced that for every image of you with your 'ears' (whether they be Disney characters or a creative design) shared on social media with the tag #ShareYourEars, they would donate $5 to Make-A-Wish, capped at $1 million. Due to the viral success of #ShareYourEars, Disney doubled their original donation and capped the donation at $2 million instead. 

The campaign encouraged the audience to take photos of themselves and their loved ones with their 'ears' and post them onto their social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. with the hashtag '#ShareYourEars'. This became a major hit and caused a trend of celebrities to join in such as Jessie J, Theresa Caputo and Alfonso Ribeiro . This kind of celebrity endorsement is great publicity in a public relations campaign as fans of these stars are more inclined to engage in a social media campaign if they see a respected role model (celebrity/expert) doing the same thing.

This social media campaign was a major success because Disney and Make-a-Wish used the resources that social media has to offer in the world of media and public relations in order to gain awareness of the wonderful work that they do for children and that if we all work together we can help these and many other good causes to raise awareness and money.

Bibliography

Young, H. (2015) The 30 Most Brilliant Social Media Campaigns of 2015. Available at: https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2015/12/2015-most-brilliant-social-media-campaigns.html [Accessed 23 November 2015]

Gallegos, J. (2016) The Best Social Media Campaigns of 2016 (So Far). Available at: http://www.tintup.com/blog/the-best-social-media-campaigns-of-2016-so-far/ [Accessed 23 November 2016]

Make A Wish. (2016) Make A Wish. Available at: https://worldwish.org/en [Accessed 23 November 2016]

Walt Disney Parks Resorts. (2016) Disneyland Resort and Make-a-Wish celebrate the Success of Worldwide "ShareYourEars" Campaign. Available at: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/disneyland-resort-and-make-a-wish-celebrate-the-success-of-worldwide-share-your-ears-campaign-300235681.html [Accessed 23 November 2016]

Bloom, T. (2016) #ShareYourEars: Disneyland fans encouraged to take part in charity campaign. Available at: http://ktla.com/2016/02/20/disneyland-fans-encouraged-to-share-your-ears-as-part-of-charity-campaign-for-make-a-wish/ [Accessed 23 November 2016]